The San Juan Weekly #102

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September 15 - 21, 2011

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U.S. Justice Department Accuses Puerto Rico Police of Abuses

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Puerto Rico’s Broken Police Department Justice Department’s Scathing Report Demands Decisive Corrective Action

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U.S. Justice Dept. Accuses Puerto Rico Police of Abuses I

n a blistering condemnation of the second-largest police force in the United States, the Justice Department is accusing the Puerto Rico Police Department of a “profound” and “longstanding” pattern of civil rights violations and other illegal practices that have left it “broken in a number of critical and fundamental respects.”

In a 116-page report that officials intend to make public Thursday, the civil rights division of the Justice Department accused the Puerto Rico Police Department of systematically “using force, including deadly force, when no force or lesser force was called for,” unnecessarily injuring hundreds of people and killing “numerous others.”

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, says the 17,000-officer force routinely conducts illegal searches and seizures without warrants.

It accuses the force of a pattern of attacking nonviolent protesters and journalists in a manner “designed to suppress the exercise of protected First Amendment rights.”

And it says investigators “uncovered troubling evidence” that law enforcement officers in Puerto Rico appear to routinely discriminate against people of Dominican descent and “fail to adequately police sex assault and domestic violence” cases — including spousal abuse by fellow officers.

“Unfortunately,” the report found, “far too many P.R.P.D. officers have broken their oath to uphold the rule of law, as they have been responsible for acts of crime and corruption and have routinely violated the constitutional rights of the residents of Puerto Rico.”

The report is likely to intensify a sense of distress among the nearly four million American citizens who live on Puerto Rico, where violent crime has spilled into well-todo areas. While violent crime has plummeted in most of the mainland United States, the murder rate in Puerto Rico is soaring. In 2011, there have been 786 homicides — 117 more than at this point last year.

Rather than helping to solve the crime wave, the Puerto Rico Police Department is part of the problem, the report contends. In October, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested 61 officers from the department in the largest police-corruption operation in bureau history. And the arrest of Puerto Rican police officers, the report says, is hardly rare.

From January 2005 to November 2010, it said, there were more than 1,709 such arrests for offenses “ranging from simple assault and theft to domestic violence, drug trafficking and murder.” During a compara-

ble period, the New York Police Department, with a force about twice the size, had about 607 such arrests.

“The degree of police corruption and criminal misconduct in Puerto Rico is high and contributes to the public safety and civil rights crisis,” the report said. “More P.R.P.D. officers are involved in criminal activity than in any other major law enforcement agency in the country.”

A “finding” by the civil rights division of a pattern or practice of constitutional violations by a police department is a precursor to a lawsuit, which either goes to trial or, if the local authorities agree to changes, may be settled on the day it is filed. The division has 17 such investigations open, including in New Orleans, Newark and Seattle.

Its investigation of the Puerto Rico police, which began in July 2008, resulted in one of the most extensive such critiques the department has ever produced. It condemns nearly every aspect of the force — its hiring and training practices, the way it assigns and promotes officers, and its policies governing officer behavior and accountability for misconduct.

The report recommends 133 remedial measures that would amount to a sweeping intervention. It is likely to create a political headache for Puerto Rico’s governor, Luis G. Fortuño, a Republican who took office in 2009 and, as chief executive, oversees the department.

Mr. Fortuño has been criticized for his administration’s handling of a series of mostly nonviolent demonstrations by students and workers to protest higher university fees and government layoffs. Riot police hit protesters, bystanders and journalists with batons and used pepper spray and choke holds, in incidents that were videotaped and are discussed in the report.

Two months ago, Mr. Fortuño named a new police superintendent, Emilio Díaz Colón, a former National Guard adjutant general. During his confirmation, Mr. Díaz said he would not shy away from doing what was

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“We all recognize that there have been challenges at the Police Department that predate the governor’s administration,” Edward Zayas, a spokesman for Mr. Fortuño, said on Wednesday. “The governor has always acknowledged that the Puerto Rico Police Department needs reforms. However, he did not wait for any report from the D.O.J. in order to act.”

The Justice Department began the investigation in part due to complaints by the American Civil Liberties Union. In June, when President Obama visited the island, the A.C.L.U. sent him a letter contending that the police had “engaged in a level of brutality against U.S. citizens” with a degree of impunity that “would not be tolerated in the 50 states.”

While the report said Puerto Rican officials cooperated with the investigation, it was hindered by poor record-keeping. For example, the Puerto Rico Police Department reported 39 rapes last year — a figure the report portrays as unbelievable because nearly every other jurisdiction has far more rapes than murders.

The report focused on the “rampant” use of “unnecessary or gratuitous” force, a problem made worse by the use of tac-

tical units — heavily armed officers who are poorly trained and steeped in “violent subcultures” — for ordinary police work.

It says such units frequently “rely on intimidation, fear and extreme use of force to manage crowds and are often deployed to low-income and minority communities on routine patrols.”

The report also recounts many “illustrative incidents” and includes a nine-page appendix listing dozens more. One example it said exemplified “many of the deep-rooted deficiencies that continue to plague P.R.P.D.” was the killing of Cáceres Cruz in August 2007 by a tactical unit officer.

Mr. Cruz was directing traffic near a birthday party when three officers drove by and thought he had insulted them. They told Mr. Cruz he was under arrest and wrestled him to the ground, during which time one officer shot himself in the leg.The officer then repeatedly shot Mr. Cruz, who was lying on the ground, in his head and body before they drove off. An internal investigation cleared them of misconduct. But after a video of the incident surfaced in the news media, one officer was convicted of murder. It emerged that seven complaints had been filed against him, but had been largely ignored.

“The tragic events surrounding the Cáceres Cruz shooting served as a stark reminder of P.R.P.D.’s institutional dysfunction,” the report said.

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The San Juan Weekly Star Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Puerto Rico’s Broken Police Department Justice Department’s scathing report demands decisive corrective action

By The Miami Herald Editorial

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fter years of investigation, the Department of Justice last week issued a scathing denunciation of the Puerto Rico Police Department that demands immediate attention by Gov. Luis Fortuño and the island’s four million residents. Rarely, if ever, has a police force in the United States — or anywhere in the world, for that matter — been the target of such harsh yet well-deserved criticism.

It’s not likely to come as a big surprise to the people of Puerto Rico.

They’ve known for a long time that their police force is riddled with corruption, incompetence and mistreatment of the citizenry, but the litany of abusive practices outlined in the 116-report — “a staggering level of crime and corruption involving PRPD officers” — is breathtaking.

Apparently, police brutality is a routine crime-fighting tactic employed by the force. The Justice Department said the misuse of force, including deadly force, needlessly “injured hundreds of people and killed numerous others.”

The report lists a series of controversial episodes of police-induced violence that led to an “appalling number of officer arrests and convictions for serious misconduct and criminal activity.” From January 2005 to November 2010, it said, more than 1,709 members of the force were arrested on charges ranging from simple assault and theft to domestic violence, drug trafficking and murder. “More PRPD officers are involved in criminal activity,” the report said, “than in any other major law-enforcement agency in the country.”

In one 2007 incident, a police sergeant shot and killed a department lieutenant — in the police station! The director of the Special Arrests and Extraditions Unit and several of his officers were convicted on drug-related

charges in 2009. A lieutenant directing the weapons registry at PRPD headquarters was convicted as part of an illegal gun licensing scheme in 2009.

The list of abusive episodes goes on and on, and it’s not just a case of rotten apples spoiling the barrel: In October of last year, 61 PRPD officers were arrested as part of the largest policecorruption operation in FBI history.

The abusive practices include what the Justice Department called a subculture of violence within the tactical units and a pattern and practice of illegal searches and seizures in violation of fundamental constitutional rights. The misbehavior, the report said, was chronic, pervasive and covers all levels of the department.

Ironically, the department’s heavy-handed approach has failed to deter criminals. This year, Puerto Rico is in the middle of one of the worst crime waves in its history, with 786 homicides through last week, 117 more than at the same point last year.

Increasing crime, however, can’t justify police abuses. It doesn’t work and results in a citizenry that fears those who are supposed to be its protectors.

Among the many recommendations offered by the Department of Justice are better training and supervision and an independent police commission with the power to shine a spotlight on abuses and do something about them. Previous investigations have recommended much the same, to no avail.

The Justice Department’s ultimate weapon is a lawsuit that would oblige the department to make changes under a judicial mandate. The problems of Puerto Rico’s Police Department predate the administration of Gov. Fortuño, but it’s up to him now to lead the way toward reform.

The police department is broken.

If he doesn’t take the lead in fixing it, the federal government and the courts will do it for him.

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Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

K

ishore Mahbubani, a retired Singaporean diplomat, published a provocative essay in The Financial Times: “Dictators are falling. Democracies are failing.

Something has changed in the grain of human history. How do dictators survive? They tell lies. Muammar Gaddafi was one of the biggest liars of all time. He claimed that his people loved him. He also controlled the flow of information to his people to prevent any alternative narrative taking hold. Then the simple cellphone enabled people to connect. The truth spread widely to drown out all the lies.

“So why are democracies failing at the same time? The simple answer: democracies have also been telling lies.”

Mahbubani noted that “the eurozone project was created on a big lie” that countries could have monetary union and fiscal independence — without pain. Meanwhile, in America, added Mahbubani, “No U.S. leaders dare to tell the truth to the people.

All their pronouncements rest on a mythical assumption that ‘recovery’ is around the corner. Implicitly, they say this is a normal recession. But this is no normal recession. There will be no painless solution. ‘Sacrifice’ will be needed, and the American people know this. But no American politician dares utter the word ‘sacrifice.”

Of course, there is a big difference between America and Libya. We can vote out our liars, unlike certain Arab — and Asian — countries. Still, Mahbubani’s comparison warrants some reflection this week, which coincides with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the president’s jobs speech.

Can you remember the last time you felt a national leader looked us in the eye and told us there is no easy solution to our major problems, that we’ve gotten into this mess by being self-indulgent or ideologically fixated over two decades and that now we need to spend the next five years rolling up our sleeves, possibly accepting a lower living standard and

making up for our excesses?

For me, this is the most important thing to say both on the anniversary of 9/11 and on the eve of President Obama’s jobs speech. After all, they are intertwined. Why has this been a lost decade? An answer can be found in one simple comparison: How Dwight Eisenhower and his successors used the cold war and how George W. Bush used 9/11. America had to face down the Russians in the cold war. America had to respond to 9/11 and the threat of Al Qaeda. But the critical difference between the two was this: Beginning with Eisenhower and continuing to some degree with every cold war president, we used the cold war and the Russian threat as a reason and motivator to do big, hard things together at home — to do nation-building in America. We used it to build the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon, push out the boundaries of science, teach new languages, maintain fiscal discipline and, when needed, raise taxes.

We won the cold war with collective action.

George W. Bush did the opposite. He used 9/11 as an excuse to lower taxes, to start two wars that — for the first time in our history — were not paid for by tax increases, and to create a costly new entitlement in Medicare prescription drugs. Imagine where we’d be today if on the morning of 9/12 Bush had announced (as some of us advocated) a “Patriot Tax” of $1 per gallon of gas to pay for education, infrastructure and government research, to help finance our wars and to slash our dependence on Middle East oil. Gasoline in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, averaged $1.66 a gallon.

But rather than use 9/11 to summon us to nation-building at home, Bush used it as an excuse to party — to double down on a radical tax-cutting agenda for the rich that not only did not spur rising living standards for most Americans but has now left us with a huge ball and chain around our ankle. And later, rather than asking each of us to contribute something to the war, he outsourced it to

one-half of one-percent of the American people. Everyone else — y’all have fun.

We used the cold war to reach the moon and spawn new industries.

We used 9/11 to create better body scanners and more T.S.A. agents.

It will be remembered as one of the greatest lost opportunities of any presidency — ever.

My fervent hope is that on Thursday Mr. Obama will set an example and tell the cold, hard truth — to parents and kids. I know. Honesty, we are told, is suicidal in politics. But as

long as every solution that is hard is off the table, then our slow national decline will remain on the table. The public is ready for more than Michele Bachmann’s fairy-dust promise that she can restore $2 a gallon gasoline.

For once, Mr. President, let’s start a debate with the truth. Tell us what you really think will be required to get us out of this stagnation, what kind of collective action and shared sacrifice will be needed and why that can lead not just to muddling through, not just to being O.K., but to restoring American greatness.

In the Land of Denial R

epublican presidential contenders regard global warming as a hoax. The most vocal denier is Rick Perry, the Texas governor and longtime friend of the oil industry, who insists climate change is a theory created by “a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data.”

Never mind nearly all the world’s scientists regard global warming as a serious threat to the planet, with human activities like the burning of fossil fuels a major cause. Never mind multiple investigations have found no evidence of scientific manipulation. Mr. Perry has a big soapbox, and reaches a bigger audience than any scientist can command.

With one exception — make that one-and-one-half — the rest of the Republican presidential field also rejects the scientific consensus. The exception is Jon Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to China and former governor of Utah, who recently wrote on Twitter: “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” The one-half exception is Mitt Romney, who accepted the science when he was governor of Massachusetts and argued for reducing emissions. Lately, he’s retreated into mush: “Do I think the world’s getting hotter?

Yeah.” As for the human contribution: “It could be a little. It could be a lot.”

Others flatly repudiate the scien-

ce. Ron Paul of Texas calls global warming “the greatest hoax that has been around for many years.” Michele Bachmann once said carbon dioxide was nothing to fear because it is a “natural byproduct of nature” and has complained of “manufactured science.”

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, has called climate change “a beautifully concocted scheme just an excuse for more government control of your life.”

Newt Gingrich’s record has been a series of epic flip-flops. In 2008, he appeared on television with Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, to say that “our country must take action to address climate change.” He now says the appearance was a mistake.

None endorse a mandatory limit on emissions or, robust clean energy program. Mr. Huntsman, as Utah governor, he joined with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in creating the Western Climate Initiative, a market-based cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing emissions in Western states. Capand-trade has since acquired a toxic political reputation, especially among Republicans, and Mr. Huntsman has backed away.

The economic downturn made climate change less urgent for voters.

The nation needs a candidate with a coherent strategy. There is no Republican who fits that description.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

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Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

A Campaign Challenge: Defining Obama

By JEFF ZELENY

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resident Obama may have escaped the burden of a Democratic primary challenger. Yet the battle to define him is rapidly escalating — not only by Republicans competing to run against him, but also within his own team inside the White House.

A Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, followed by the president’s economic address to Congress on Thursday, offers a window into the dueling efforts to provide voters a view of Mr. Obama and his record at a time when polling shows that he is increasingly vulnerable politically and that Americans feel the country is careering down the wrong track.

The White House is in the midst of rebranding the president as a pragmatic problem solver prepared to set aside ideology to address a compelling need (see last week’s concession on ozone regulations), a reasonable man in an era dominated by extreme views. But they also emphasize that he is willing to draw distinctions with conservatives, reflecting a central tension that has defined him as a candidate and as president: that in trying to lay claim to a broad swath of the electorate, as he succeeded in doing in 2008, he risks pleasing neither the center nor the left, the story of much of his time in office.

The Republican candidates, collectively and in distinctive ways, continue to cast him as the foil against whom they ran so successfully in 2010: a big-government liberal who has expanded regulations, created uncertainty for business and failed to revive the economy, with millions more Americans out of work

than when he took office. They portray him as an unsteady leader who is unequipped to turn around a country in economic crisis.

The outcome of the presidential race over the next 14 months could well hinge to a large degree on which side prevails in the minds of moderate and independent voters.

While the president will not directly confront the Republican nominee until well into next year, his advisers believe that the next three months are critical to improving his standing and reversing his downward trajectory. He is frustrated — particularly at Republicans on Capitol Hill, but also at some of his own aides, according to people who have spoken to him recently — that he has been unable to rise above the morass of Washington and recapture the spirit that helped him win election.

The frustration has led to internal divisions among some advisers over the scope of his economic address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. The president intends to offer at least some progressive proposals to help regain a fighting posture that he has not had since the health care debate, but a provision is also being discussed to place a new moratorium on some regulations that affect the economy, excluding health care and financial rules. The proposals are likely to infuriate an already unhappy Democratic base.

“He’s erred on the side of trying to reason with unreasonable people, which seems to be the wrong strategy,” said Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, who has advised the White House and is a senior fellow at Georgetown Universi-

ty. “There is not a clear understanding in most people’s minds of what is his philosophy. In Republicans there is a clear understanding.”

Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, said she “felt great disappointment” with the president’s decision last week to abandon new air pollution rules, but added that she was heartened by his pledge to protect the Clean Air Act. She wants to see him revive the “fighting spirit that I know he has.”

Mr. Obama stands at a precarious moment of his term. Public pessimism is at its highest point in nearly three years, and his approval rating has fallen to its lowest, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll, which also found that more than 60 percent of those surveyed disapprove of how he is handling the economy and jobs.

The White House can no longer take comfort in comparing the approval ratings for Mr. Obama with Ronald Reagan’s or Bill Clinton’s in the months after their stinging midterm election defeats. By the time their re-election efforts were intensifying after Labor Day, their respective repositioning had helped elevate their approval above 50 percent.

But the mood of the American public is so dour toward Washington — Congressional Republicans fare even worse than the president — it remains an open question whether Mr. Obama can present a job-creation agenda that can break through among voters. For that matter, it is not clear that the conservative argument against Mr. Obama’s leadership will be enough for the nation to turn the White House over to a Republican.

“If this is just a referendum on eco-

nomic conditions, then any incumbent is going to struggle with that, but it’s not just that. It’s a contest about what to do about it,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist to the president’s re-election campaign. “I’d be more worried if I saw some compelling new argument for how to lead the country, but these guys are carrying the same old water.”

The Republican candidates are increasingly trying to introduce themselves to primary voters through a sharp critique of Mr. Obama’s performance on the economy. The Republican argument will be amplified on Wednesday night during a televised debate in California at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

On the eve of the debate, Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, presented a 59-point economic plan during a speech at a trucking company in Nevada. He proposed a “Reagan economic zone,” which would seek to open trade with countries that agreed to offer greater protections to intellectual property.

When Gov. Rick Perry of Texas promotes his job-creation record in Texas, he starts off with a direct criticism of the Obama administration, telling an audience last weekend in New Hampshire: “He’s lost more than a million jobs while he’s been president. I’ve created a million jobs since I’ve been the governor.”

The president’s advisers, and occasionally the president himself, are paying increasing attention to the comments from the leading Republican candidates.

An aide said Mr. Obama would not be watching the debate on Wednesday evening, but rather would be preparing to have the last word — for this week, at least — the next night in the Capitol.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

LETTERS A Form of Self-loathing Really A house in Guaynabo had been beautifully surrounded by a blend of Flamboyan trees and abundant bushes. One afternoon I walked by and the bushes had been scissored and the trees chainsawed and it looked like hurricane Hugo had made it back somehow. I asked the fellows doing it. A hardy old man, eyeing his machete with stern pride replied, the place had become un monte, an unkind word for rainforest. You couldn’t even see the house anymore, he added.

Visitors to Puerto Rico are impressed by its lush tropical vegetation, it’s what makes our landscape gorgeous. Most countries don’t get the rainfall needed for such luxuriant green. Yet here people dislike precisely this asset of Puerto Rico. They’re always pruning and chainsawing down. The urbanizations swelter even though they would be nice and cool if only they had a canopy of treetops over them.

Government bureaucrats are particularly adept at this. Condado is phasing out its trees, because, it’s alleged--with a straight face---that they’re responsible for the frequent blackouts and they crack the sidewalks.

Nowhere else on earth does it occur to anybody that the key to good electrical service and intact sidewalks is treeless cities! Here, gangs of Obras Públicas men show up with chainsaws and quickly, before indignant residents have time to react, the tree is in pieces and getting loaded onto a big white truck. Then they cement the hole over so that no gringo interloper has to audacity to plant a tree there ever again.

I’m told it’s because greenery reminds people of a painful past of rural poverty. And that everybody wants to imitate American standards of landscaping. Actually most mainlanders would love to have their houses smack in a rainforest, it’s just that there’s not enough rain for that anywhere in North America. In Hawaii, where there is, people make the most of it, often surround their homes with veritable jungles.

It’s truly sad when you have something of great beauty and value and you destroy it. The only other example I can think of is Italy, where people tear out gorgeous marble floors, that cost an arm and a leg elsewhere but are cheap there, and replace them with wood, that’s scarce and expensive because it’s imported mostly. My uncle’s girlfriend in Rome did that and was bragging and taking pictures and my mother then opposed the wedding because the girl just couldn’t be right in the head.

Jackson Winters, Isla Verde

Heroism, Cowardice and Banditry Only the UPR students stood between economic liife and we know it and a new feudalism. If the University becomes once again exclusive of the moneyed, in a generation there’ll be no more middle class and oppression of the poor will turn ruthless to the point only police terror will keep our socioeconomy in one piece. The

Puerto Rico of the penepeístas existed when sugar was king here, a Puerto Rico of sickness and illiteracy and barefoot children. It was also the age of the landlords, the mansions, of obscene privilege. We’re truly abject cowards that our children struggled alone, heroes not even acknowledged. While the bandits we voted for with banners and shouts reign unchecked, we handed our future over to merciless wolves. It’s our shame that our children wield a maturity we sorrily lack.

Ana Montes, Las Lomas

Wealth & the Governor Much is being said about Fortuño’s plutocratic antidemocracy schemes. But his attack on the professional guilds is hardly noticed. His blitz against the Colegio de Abogados was ostensibly against the left, but it turned out just the opening salvo of an endeavor to deregulate the professions to degrade quality control of specialized services. Why so?

Power abhors a vacuum and who will pick up the handiwork of the guilds? Big Bad Business, natch.

Because if you take diabetic Grandma’s prescription to the corner drugstore, they’ll now likely hand you Beninoxipolicasifol, the trade name of an insulin blocker made in Taiwan, instead of Beninoctipolicasifol, an insulin from Canada, and she’ll croak within minutes.

You won’t chance it, you’ll end up at the big chainstore pharmacy where you’ll have to pay double.

Ayla Bond, Miramar

Crime & Fortuño Every sociology textbook on earth tells that you can’t expect crime to abate unless you address root causes. And what do you think happens when you gentrify higher education? And when public education is a feint? And when you make business easy for the corporations, but impracticable for the little guy? And when Constitutional rights entail outrageous expense? And when drug trafficking is kept illegal and profitable? Where medicalization would drop drug crime in its tracks and enable treatment for the addicted (What ever happened to methadone?).

A veritable civil war took place in the United States through the Thirties. No, it wasn’t that people wanted booze and there was Prohibition. Rather the poverty of the Great Depression, brought on by the hanky-panky of the rich.

Adam Cramer, Santurce

To Dr. Luis Feliciano:

marketplace health care means bad health care.

You’d best take a ride on a time machine and join Dostoyevsky and Lombroso, but don’t get to Marx and Freud. They wouldn’t like you.

Julián Acevedo, Ocean Park

Lost in Translation You read the Bible and you wonder. Jesus instructs an Apostle whose dad just died and requests leave to inter him, to “let the dead bury the dead.” You can’t take this literally. What was meant? What when you say it in the original Greek text or the actual Aramaic exchange?

Our pastor didn’t know. Does anybody?

Agustín Manzano, San Juan

You’re Just Plain Mean To Dr. Luis Feliciano: It’s not so much to have what you ought to have but don’t, rather that you’re told it’s your fault and you’re branded as less than worthy. One expects a psychiatrist to be cognizant of such matters. “Crime and Punishment” blames the patient rather that the malady, it made it easy to hang people---many of them---in Dostoyeavsky’s century. Yet we know all about root causes, we have sociology textbooks now.

Wouldn’t a shrink know that nobody wants to become a predator on community, you’ve got to be crushed pretty badly to get that way. So what do we want to do about crime, get even or rid of it?

You advocate health care as commerce, an obscenity, considering that a patient on a sick bed is hardly Adam Smith’s initiator of market/production dynamic, you can’t be that when you’re postrate and helpless.

I don’t forget when you wrote that one who hasn’t the 50 cents for a newspapaer may claim no right to read it. Likewise the infirm may beg for charity, nothing more.

Yet the dramatic unpredictability of illness means you can’t save up for it, can’t plan ahead. Insurance crafted to bilk you is of little help. And a medical establishment set up to max profits at the expense of health.

A kid born into poverty, sent to public school and all that entails, and then let loose to minimum wage for himself. There’s no “criminal Mind,” just a criminal delivery framework.

Paula Benedict, Atlantic View

The San Juan Weekly Star Send your opinions and ideas to: The San Juan Weeekly Star PO BOX 6537 Caguas PR 00726

Everything you write over the years spews such obvious bad faith, you’re the best aqrgument against everything you say. Your indictment of the “criminal element” gets nowhere except to legitimize hierarchy, those at odds with it are inevitably the bad guys. And

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LETTERS Unclever Suggestions Entitlement Indeed To Magda Badrena: What wherewithal qualifies you to second guess police logistics? Granted our cops, beyond bullying, don’t know much what they’re doing.

But your instructions are fanciful, arbitrary and un-Constitutional. You must live in the urbanization that encircled Llorens with a Berlinish wall, tall and topped with ribbon wire, you’re missing the watchtowers and the machine gus.

If those fellows on the other side had been through Robinson, UHS or San Ignacio, and they’d gotten into UPR for a degree, would you still be hearing all those shots? Mano dura simply doesn’t work any more than chasing your own tail means you’ll ever usefully catch it. The name of the game is an egalitarian socioeconomy. What the penepeísta gents on top won’t hear of. Even after a bullet finds its way into your skull.

Javier Acevedo , Ocean Park

To Dr. Luis Feliciano: You’re born into rags, the other fellow into riches. You’re public schooled into flunking the College Board, so no college for you, not that you could afford that anyway. The other fellow gets into UPR, the Inter or some expensive Stateside campus. Now you’re flipping burgers while he’s applying into law school. He’ll end up in a fancy condo, you’ll struggle all your life only to get skewered again and again by the banks and health insurance and jackals galore. Perhaps you were entitled to some of what the other fellow got after all.

Carrutha Harris, Puerta de Tierra

Best Without You To Gov. Fortuño: You’re the first governor under the American

flag here to assail our democratic institutions. With a little help from your friends, plutocrat soulmate Pierluisi and Reaganomist McClintock. Your moneyed origins mean all you do is hurt Puerto Rico, you’re bad karma, why don’t you just fly off to Montecarlo, your natural habitat, and stay there?

Lisa Bay, Caparra Heights

Car Lobby Strikes Again My dad’s had it with the senor ATI card that always says JUST USED and doesn’t let him in and the clerks know this unless they’re truly challenged upstairs or what the Germans call Schadenfreude, the enjoyment of the pain of others. To be harassed, humiliated and called a liar by badfaith clerks and anabolic-bodied security guards.

He’s gone back to buses, that are much slower, undependable, but you get on them without a fight.

Rina Rinaldi, San Juan

12

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Plane Crash Kills Top Russian Hockey Team

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

A

Russian passenger airliner chartered by one of the country’s best-known hockey teams crashed during take-off on Wednesday, killing most of the team, including many of its star players and N.H.L. veterans.

The crash added to a terrible run of air safety problems in Russia this year, with eight fatal crashes this year, six of them since June.

The Yak-42 jet that crashed on Wednesday was carrying the Lokomotiv hockey team from its home in Yaroslavl, a city northeast of Moscow, to an away game in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in what would have been the second game of the Russian hockey season. It was airborne for only a few moments, roaring over a picturesque village of wooden homes and flower gardens near the airport before crashing.

There were 37 passengers and crew on the plane, according to a list published online by the authorities. A Russian aviation official told the Interfax news agency that two people survived — one member of the crew and one player, the star forward Aleksander Galimov,

who was rushed to a local hospital.

A spokesman for Lokomotiv, Vladimir N. Malkov, said in a telephone interview.

“We have no team any more, they all burned in the crash.”

Lokomotiv has three times been champion of the Kontinental Hockey League, the Russian equivalent of the National Hockey League in North America. The league has been striving to revive Russian hockey and retain players who were being lost to the N.H.L., while at the same time recruiting some North American and European stars as players and coaches.

Lokomotiv’s coach, Brad McCrimmon, a Canadian who played for 18 seasons in the N.H.L. between 1979 and 1997, died in the crash, authorities said. Mr. McCrimmon had been an assistant coach for several N.H.L. clubs including the New York Islanders, Calgary Flames, Atlanta Thrashers and Detroit Red Wings.

The team’s roster includes Czech, Swedish, Ukrainian, Latvian and Belarusian hockey players. Among the best known were a starting forward, Jan Marek, a Czech hockey prodigy who was drafted by the New York Rangers in 2003 , though he never played for that team. Another was Pavol Demitra, a veteran of 16 seasons in the N.H.L. playing for the Los Angeles Kings and the Vancouver Canucks and the

captain of the Slovak national team.

Near the site of the crash, hockey fans began to appear nearly as quickly as the firemen, soldiers and emergency workers.

One Lokomotiv fan, Dmitri Shorikov, arrived in a sports jersey to stare glumly at the flashing lights and commotion. “I still haven’t taken it in,” he said. “I just cannot believe it.”

The Yak-42 plane was one of the aging Soviet-designed needle-nosed aircraft that have been the focus of safety concerns after a series of problems and crashes, including one in June that killed most of the 52 passengers on board.

The hockey team’s plane came down about 500 yards from the Yaroslavl runway shortly after 4 p.m. The fuselage came to rest partly in a tributary to the Volga River; it was unclear whether the pilot, having encountered an emergency during take-off, had tried to ditch the plane in the water, but struck the river bank instead. The veering airplane made explosive noises during its short flight, according to witnesses.

Aleksandr Kanygin, a 65-year-old resident of the village the plane flew over, said he heard two explosions while it was airborne, and then a louder explosion when it struck the ground. “The air shook” he said.

Witnesses described the fuselage engulfed in fire, and the blackened forms of bo-

dies nearby on the ground.

The Yak-42 is a three-engine, 120-seat jet meant for relatively short flights; it first entered service in 1975. About 90 Yak42’s are now in service, mostly in Russia, though some are used in Cuba, Iran, Armenia, Tatarstan and Kazakhstan. Eight Yak42’s have crashed over the years, with 570 fatalities. The Yak-42D version that crashed Wednesday was last manufactured in 1999.

The plane was operated by YAK Service, a charter airline founded in 1993 whose operations were restricted by Russian regulators for three months in 2009 because of major safety deficiencies, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks air accidents and incidents.

Aviation authorities in former Soviet nations insisted for years that their civilian airliners were as safe as Western counterparts, but a series of horrifying close calls and deadly accidents have prompted them to back away from those claims. Aviation experts say the age and obsolescence of Russia’s passenger fleet makes mechanical problems and accidents more frequent and more severe. New models are being introduced, like the Superjet, which is intended to replace shorter-range planes like the Yak-42, but only three Superjets have been put into service so far.

U.N. Body Warns of Risks of Global Austerity

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

T

he global economy faces a decade-long stagnation because governments are pursuing deficit cuts and other austerity measures rather than providing the needed stimulus packages, said a United Nations economic report released Tuesday.

Instead of new regulation of the financial system to address the problems that helped bring on the recession in 2007-8, governments in the United States and Europe are trying to woo the very speculators who helped cause the problem, said the report by the Genevabased United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which is known by its acronym, Unctad.

“Those who support fiscal tightening argue that it is indispensable for restoring the confidence of financial markets, which is perceived as key to economic recovery,” the report said.

“This is despite the almost universal recognition that the crisis was the result of financial market failure in the first place.”

The report criticized the austerity measures as producing results exactly opposite their intended effect.

“Making balanced budgets or low public debt an end in itself,” the report said, “can be detrimental to achieving other goals of economic policy, namely high employment and socially acceptable income distribu-

tion.”

The report said Western governments should instead be more strictly regulating financial markets, promoting wage increases that will stimulate spending and returning to managed exchange rates and other measures that decrease speculation.

“Domestic consumption remains weak owing to persistently high unemployment and slow or stagnant wage growth,” said the report.

The report said that the global economy was expected to grow by only 3.1 percent this year, compared with 3.9 percent in 2010, and that developing nations, particularly economically dynamic ones like Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey, would grow at a far higher rate than the developed Western nations.

“Unemployment depends very much on demand,” said Heiner Flassbeck, the lead author of the report and the chief of globalization and trade strategies for Unctad.

“If you have no demand, then you need government to step in with a huge program for stimulating the economy,” Mr. Flassbeck, a former deputy finance minister in Germany, told reporters, according to Reuters.

“This was the U.S. scenario in the past,” he said.

“Now it’s worse because wages are rising less than in the past, so you’re going to need a bigger stimulus program.”

Giant Crocodile Caught E

ven as a captured 2,370-pound, 20-foot saltwater crocodile was put on display in a town in the southern Philippines, the authorities said Tuesday that an even bigger crocodile might still be a threat. The captured animal, nicknamed Lolong, is to become the star attraction of an ecotourism park in Bunawan Township, where about 100 people pulled it from a creek by rope over the weekend and then hoisted it by crane onto a truck. Crocodiles are blamed for two deaths locally in the past two years. A wildlife official, Ronnie Sumiller, said another search was under way for a possibly larger crocodile that had been spotted nearby.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

13

When the Veterinarian Comes to Your Pet who feeds the stray cats,” Ms. Krmpotich said.

Leslie Gellatly, a Wauconda veterinarian, regularly staffs the van. “Everyone loves animals,” she said as she cleaned off a metal exam table. “If they know the problem, they’ll get involved.”

Jessica Von Waldau, another veteri-

By BRIDGET O’SHEA

B

esides the bleak landscape of boarded-up houses and empty lots, residents of economically struggling Chicago neighborhoods must contend with thousands of stray pets.

The feral dogs and cats roam neighborhoods throughout the city looking for food and shelter. Some lucky ones may be candidates for adoption; others are subject to impoundment or even euthanasia.

Pet overpopulation is a particular problem in areas where residents have trouble paying for veterinary care.

Last year, the city took in about 17,500 dogs and cats, according to Brad Powers, assistant to the executive director at Chicago’s Animal Care and Control. He said most of the stray cats came from the South and Southwest Sides and most of the stray dogs from the West Side.

Now a team of veterinarians has begun to visit those low-income neighborhoods every Sunday to lessen the financial burden on pet owners and combat the proliferation of abandoned animals. The GusMobile, started by PAWS Chicago, a no-kill humane organization, is a veterinary clinic inside a state-of-the-art van. A doctor spays, neuters and administers vaccinations to dogs and cats free of charge to clients who receive Medicaid.

“So when you’re loading your car with groceries, someone’s having a surgery,” said Paula Fasseas, founder of PAWS Chicago, a nonprofit in Lincoln Park that also operates a free and low-cost clinic in Little Village.

After surgery, the animals are given time to recover in the

van’s cages and are monitored for side effects from the anesthesia. The mobile clinic, the only one of its kind in the city, has been in operation since May. “There’s more domestic animals in the city than people to take care of them,” said Mr. Powers. “I think it’s a wonderful service that PAWS offers.” He said that thanks to free and low-cost spaying and neutering services, the number of stray pets has dropped steadily in recent years.

On a recent stormy Sunday morning, four patient dog owners were lined up outside the GusMobile in a shopping center parking lot. Currently working in the Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side, the mobile unit operators intend to visit other areas where residents cannot afford veterinary services.

“There are plenty of stray cats around my neighborhood,” said Marcella Smith, who was waiting for her cat to have surgery in Roseland. She said she had heard about the GusMobile from her neighbor.

Kathy Krmpotich, a South Side resident who was waiting for her three cats to undergo surgery, said she fed the many feral animals in her neighborhood.

“I’m the crazy nut lady on the block

narian, said she performed surgeries at a much faster pace than was usual in private practice. “I used to see 10 patients a day; now it feels more like 50,” she said, but added that the workload was not a problem.

“Actually, we kind of have fun here,” she said.

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Sports

14

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

In a Game of Physical Prowess, It’s the Mind That Matters 16 minutes. She needed another two and a half hours to dispatch Maria Kirilenko in the fourth round.

Their match included a 32-point tie breaker in the second set, the longest for women in tournament history. Stosur came out on the losing end in the tie breaker but stormed back to advance, 6-2, 6-7 (15), 6-3, outlasting her reputation for being physically buff but mentally fragile.

“I haven’t always been known for my competitiveness out there, to really fight hard,” Stosur said.

She added: “It’s definitely very rewarding. I know now I can do it.”

Which comes first, self-belief or success? It’s the chicken-egg question of sports.

For Janko Tipsarevic, lighting his pilot light of certainty has led him, at 27, to a careerhigh ranking of No. 20.

By KAREN CROUSE

J

o-Wilfried Tsonga was talking about how a tennis match is won between the ears as much as between the lines. “My game, you know, is very good when I have nothing in my head, when I just play my game,” he said Monday after defeating Mardy Fish in five sets at the United States Open.

Off to the side, a photographer was working away, his camera’s motor drive making a sound as if crickets were invading the room. The noise caused other journalists to turn their heads in his direction, but Tsonga kept talking.

He said that being “really, really strong in the head,” as he put it, meant he was not thinking “about other things like the wind, people in the box.” Tsonga’s voice trailed off as he joined the others in looking at the crouching photographer. He smiled and added, “All this stuff.”

Some players in the Open draw have faster serves than others or more penetrating ground strokes or better touch at the net. But at the elite level, those differences are negligible. Those who succeed are the ones who are really, really strong in the head.

“Physically, there is not much difference between No. 78 in the world and Nos. 2, 3, 1, 5,” said Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked men’s player, who has lost two matches all year. “Everybody’s working hours and hours on the court.”

He added, “It’s a mental ability to handle the pressure, to play well at the right moments, and that’s why I think there is a certain difference with top-10 players.”

Djokovic’s fourth-round victory against Alexandr Dolgopolov, the No. 22 seed, was a case in point. Extended to a tie breaker in the first set, he weathered four set points by Dolgopolov and prevailed, 16-14, when Dolgo-

polov hit a forehand out after a long rally.

“I think mental strength you get over the years playing on the tour, getting experience, and using that experience in a right way,” said Djokovic, who turned professional in 2003.

The brain, like a muscle, gets stronger when pushed to the point of failure. In “Rafa,” his recently published autobiography, Rafael Nadal articulated what becomes patently obvious to anyone at the Open who watches the parade of players hitting on the practice courts.

“If you watch the No. 10 player in the world and the No. 500 in training, you won’t necessarily be able to tell who is higher up in the rankings,” Nadal wrote. “Without the pressure of competition, they’ll move and hit the ball much the same way.”

But in the caldron of competition, cooler, clearer heads prevail. Consider No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki’s three-set, three-hour match against 15th seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Wozniacki’s backhand brought her back from a 4-1 deficit in the second set, but her 13 winners off that wing do not tell the whole story of her 6-7 (6), 7-5, 6-1 victory.

Her tactical adjustments, which included stepping closer to the baseline to become more of an aggressor, would have mattered little without her ability to play the right shot at a critical moment, to stay relaxed on the tensest points, to believe she was going to win even when she was eight points from defeat.

“It’s important to stay positive,” Wozniacki said, adding: “Tennis is a funny sport.

You have to just keep going.”

Nobody at this Open has shown more staying power than Samantha Stosur, whose 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5) 7-5 victory against Nadia Petrova was the longest women’s match in tournament history, clocking in at 3 hours

“My mental strength is better this year because of the determination that I want to improve,” Tipsarevic said. “When you have certain goals, good things are happening to you because you’re making the right decisions without making an effort.”

Mardy Fish made the effort to get physically fit and found that the discipline required to lose 30 pounds carried over to the court. He sticks to his game plans the way he does to his diet and has diligently pursued intermediate goals, which is how he found himself the top-ranked American, at eighth over all, in the Open.

In the fourth round, Fish ran into Tsonga, who did a better job of ignoring the gusty winds, the loud crowd and the cumulative fatigue of another endless summer. He removed the clutter from his head, clearing his path to success.

A Ride to Remember

By TALYA MINSBERG

T

he surfing experiment that is Quiksilver Pro New York began with one of the most anticipated heats of the competition — the 10-time world champion Kelly Slater of Florida against the hometown hero Balaram Stack and Daniel Ross of Australia.

Surfers rushed to Long Beach, Long Island, at 6:30 a.m. to a wet, windswept strip of beach where waves were three to four feet. Not bad for Long Beach.

Stack, of Long Beach, who was invited to compete without having to qualify, seemed nothing less than thrilled to be surfing next to Slater, whom he calls “the sickest guy ever to surf with.”

As the three paddled out in the first of two nonelimination heats, it was clear that Stack knew the sweet spots of the break, catching more waves than Slater and Ross.

Stack, 20, showed his technical skills and style with aerial antics, but struggled with clean landings and precision.

Although Slater, 39, struggled briefly with the beach-break waves, he ultimately demonstrated enough consistency to win the heat, scoring 14.20, with Ross coming in second at 11.66 and Stack finishing at 6.07.

“It was fun, seeing everyone cheer me on even when I was paddling for a wave,” Stack said, stepping out of the water.

Stack has become the competition’s mascot of sorts, representing not only Long Beach surfers but the emergence of a talented new class of East Coast surfer.

“I’ve been doing like six interviews a day, so this contest is pretty much a lot to

handle, but a good career move for me, bringing all the attention to the home break,” Stack said last weekend when interviewed by the contest’s sponsors. “And me getting the wild card, it’s all coming together pretty well, so it’s cool.”

Tuesday was the first day of competition in an event that could play out over 10 days. Competition days are dependent on wave and weather conditions, which are evaluated at 6:30 every morning.

Surfing fans and dazed New Yorkers have swarmed to the beach to cheer on the wetsuit-clad group of professional surfers from around the world. An impressive 40,000 attended the opening ceremony Monday, with thousands braving the rainy conditions to watch the first round of heats early Tuesday morning.

During Monday’s opening ceremony, amid screams of “Aloha!” Stack was singled out by a contest official as a surfer to watch.

Wave forecasters at Surfline, a waveforecasting Web site, project that waves may reach 5 to 7 feet Wednesday and 6 to 8 feet Thursday, as swells from Hurricane Katia roll into Long Beach.

When the competition resumes with Round 2, Stack will surf in the opening heat against Mick Fanning, a 30-year-old twotime champion from Australia.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

15

Kitchen

Grilled London Broil: Try It Spicy and Smoky

By MELISSA CLARK

A

LONDON broil is one of those mystery steaks without a firm identity.

The name originally referred to a flank steak that was, not surprisingly, broiled, and sliced against the grain. But these days, a London broil can be cut from several parts of a steer (including top round, bottom round, shoulder, sirloin), and grilling can be the method of choice.

What brings all these disparate elements together is affordability and size: London broil steaks are always big, thick, lean and inexpensive. They are ideal for feeding a

hungry crowd, though don’t try to do so in London, where no one will have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.

They were, however, a meaty, brawny staple of my childhood. My mother marinated one giant steak for hours in red wine and garlic, and broiled it for dinner. Then she repurposed the copious leftovers all week. We ate it packed into sandwiches, thinly sliced and piled onto salads, or chopped up into hash.

It’s a perfect steak for cooking once and eating twice (or three or four times) and tastes even better when the meat is cool enough to really savor its beefy minerality.

No matter if you broil, pan-sear or grill it, like most economical cuts, London broils want to stay rare and juicy and a little chewy to show off its best side.

Cooked through until completely brown, these steaks toughen and dry up. Warning to well-done steak lovers: You might want to buy a different hunk of beef.

Another rule of London broil success is to always season it ahead. The thicker your steak, the longer you should marinate it to let it really absorb all the flavors. The last thing you want is a steak that’s tasty on the exterior and bland within. My mother used to plop her steak in a marinade in the morning, stick it in

the refrigerator, then cook it at night. It’s a good practice. But even as little as an hour will do if that’s all the time you have.

Since London broils are so beefy and rich, you can heap on the seasonings without worrying about overdoing it. I like my steaks spicy and smoky with chipotle chile and glazed with honey for a caramelized and barely sweet edge. But soy sauce, mustard, balsamic and brown sugar are other classic flavors you could use if you like.

Then grill the meat over the hottest flame you can manage. Eat some now, eat the rest later. You won’t regret that leftover hunk of meat in the fridge.

Garlicky, Smoky Grilled London Broil With Chipotle Chiles Time: 15 minutes plus at least an hour’s marinating 4 tablespoons minced chipotle in adobo sauce 2 tablespoons honey 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 London broil, top round or flank steak (2 1/2 pounds), about 1-inch thick 2 teaspoons kosher salt Chopped cilantro Lime wedges.

1. In a bowl, whisk together the chipotle, honey and garlic. Whisk in the oil.

2. Season the steak all over with the salt. Pat the meat evenly with the chipotle mixture and let rest for at least an hour at room temperature, or as long as overnight in the refrigerator. If you’ve chilled it, let the steak come to room temperature before grilling.

3. Light the charcoal or preheat the grill. Brush off any bits of garlic or chile from the meat and grill, covered, until the meat is charred on the outside and done to taste inside, 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Let the meat rest 5 minutes before thinly slicing. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with lime wedges.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Slow-Cooked Albacore and Fresh Shell Bean Salad Time: About 1 hour FOR THE SLOW-COOKED ALBACORE: 1 pound skinless albacore fillet Salt and pepper ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes ½ teaspoon fennel seed 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 1 small rosemary sprig ½ cup olive oil, approximately FOR THE SALAD: 1 cup finely diced red and yellow bell pepper ½ cup finely diced sweet white or red onion A pinch of red pepper flakes 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 small garlic clove, smashed to a paste with a little salt 2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon chopped basil or mint, or 1 teaspoon chopped marjoram 2 cups cooked shell beans (from about 2 pounds in the pod) 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and halved, optional.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the albacore into inch-thick slices and place them in a small ovenproof dish.

Season generously with salt and pepper.

Put the red pepper flakes and fennel seed in a mortar or spice mill and make a rough powder. Sprinkle over the fish.

Add the garlic and rosemary. Add oil to a depth of ½ inch.

2. Cover the dish and place in the

oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn the slices over, then return to the oven for another 10 minutes. The albacore should be cooked through, but barely. Let the fish cool in its dish, uncovered. Store the fish in its cooking juices in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Bring to room temperature to serve.

3. To make the salad, toss the peppers, onion, pepper flakes, vinegar, garlic and olive oil in a large serving bowl. Season well with salt and pepper and stir in the basil, mint or marjoram.

Add the shell beans, draining them well first, and the cooked albacore, broken into large pieces, and mix together. Serve with hard-boiled eggs, if you like.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Kitchen 16

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Rainbow Peppers and Shrimp With Rice Noodles

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

Y

ou can now find brown rice noodles in many supermarkets and whole foods stores. For a vegetarian version of this dish, try it with tofu instead of shrimp.

7 ounces thin rice stick noodles (1/2 of a 14-ounce package), preferably brown rice noodles 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth 1 tablespoon soy sauce (more to taste) 2 tablespoons Shao Hsing rice wine or dry sherry 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon cornstarch 2 tablespoons minced ginger 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1 jalapeño, seeded and minced 3/4 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined Salt to taste 2 tablespoons peanut oil or canola oil 1 large red bell pepper, cut in 2-inch julienne 1 large yellow bell pepper, cut in 2-inch julienne 4 scallions, minced 1/2 cup chopped cilantro 2 teaspoons dark sesame oil

1. Place the noodles in a large bowl, and cover with warm water. Soak for at least 20 minutes until soft. Drain in a colander. With kitchen scissors, cut into 6-inch lengths. Set aside within reach of your wok or pan. Combine the broth, 2 teaspoons of the soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of the rice wine or sherry and sugar in a small bowl. Combine the garlic,

1 tablespoon of the ginger and the minced jalapeño in another bowl. Have all of your ingredients within reach of your wok or pan.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the cornstarch, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon rice wine or sherry and 1 tablespoon of the ginger. Stir together well.

Lightly salt the shrimp, and toss with the cornstarch mixture until coated.

3. Heat a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok or a 12-inch skillet over high heat until a drop of water evaporates from the surface within a second or two. Add the oil to the sides of the pan, and tilt the pan to distribute. Add the garlic, ginger and jalapeño, and stir-fry for no more than 10 seconds. Add the peppers, and stir-fry for one minute. Add the shrimp along with any liquid in the bowl, and stir-fry for two to three minutes until pink and opaque. Add the scallions, drained noodles and the broth mixture, and stir-fry for one to two minutes until the noodles are just tender. Add the cilantro, and stir-fry for another 30 seconds. Stir in the sesame oil, remove from the heat and serve, with more soy sauce if desired.

Yield: Serves four.

Advance preparation: You can soak the noodles up to a day ahead of serving (refrigerate overnight).

Nutritional information per serving (four servings): 343 calories; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 107 milligrams cholesterol; 53 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 598 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 17 grams protein

Spicy Stir-Fried Japanese Eggplant and Cucumber

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

T

his light side dish is inspired by a more substantial pork, cucumber and garlic dish in Grace Young’s “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge.” I’d never thought about stir-frying cucumber until I saw this recipe. It’s a great idea: the crunchy, watery cucumber contrasts beautifully with the soft eggplant. Make sure to slice the eggplant thinly, or it won’t cook through. This stir-fry cold is also good served cold.

2 long Japanese eggplants (about 1 1/2 pounds) Salt 2 long English cucumbers (or the equivalent in weight of Japanese or Persian cucumbers) 2 tablespoons rice vinegar 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt (more to taste) 2 teaspoons dark sesame oil 2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil 1 tablespoon minced ginger 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (to taste) 2 tablespoons minced scallions or chives 1. Trim off the calyx end of the eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice thin (about 1/4 inch).

Lightly salt, and toss in a colander.

Allow to sit for 15 minutes while you

prepare the other ingredients. Squeeze out excess water, then dry between sheets of paper towel.

2. Meanwhile, trim off the ends of the cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice on the diagonal into 1/4-inch thick slices.

3. Combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and sesame oil in a small bowl. Place all of the ingredients near your wok or frying pan.

4. Heat a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok or 12-inch steel skillet over high heat until a drop of water evaporates within a second or two from the surface of the pan. Add the peanut or canola oil to the sides of the pan and tilt the pan to distribute. Add the eggplant. Stir-fry for three to four minutes until cooked through. Add the ginger and red pepper flakes, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the cucumbers and scallions or chives.

Stir-fry 30 seconds. Add the soy sauce mixture to the wok, and stir-fry one minute until the cucumber just begins to wilt. Remove from the heat and serve.

Yield: Serves four as a side dish.

Nutritional information per serving (four servings): 146 calories; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 15 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 248 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 3 grams protein

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

17

FASHION & BEAUTY

Turning Cork Into Couture

By KATE SINGLETON

T

here was plenty of cork-popping at the wedding of Anna Grindi’s daughter in Tempio Pausania, in northern Sardinia 10 years ago. In fact, the cork stole the show from the wine.

Not only because Cork oaks abound in the surrounding Gallura region, their brownish-orange midriffs a sign of the regular harvesting still essential to the local economy. But also because Rossana, the bride, wore a wedding gown made of cork.

Anna Grindi had put her all into that dress. First, in her role as a skilled couturière with many customers among the international elite who vacation on the Costa Smeralda. But, more importantly, because she had long believed it should be possible to obtain beautiful non-woven fabrics from cork. And this was a chance to go public with what she’d discovered after more than a decade of testing and experimentation.

“Cork is an amazing natural material, impermeable to liquids and gas, and with great thermal qualities,” Ms. Grindi said. “But it has one drawback: small quantities of reddish sand which make the surface rough and discontinuous.” Her quest, she said, had been to find “a simple, noninvasive way of eliminating those impurities.”

She started experimenting with cork in the late 1990s and her approach was hands-on and empirical; her laboratory, the kitchen. At night, when her husband and daughter had gone to bed, she tested various ingredients

of natural origins, adding them to the cork in a pressure cooker. (She would not reveal the exact components she used.)

“My paradigm was my own experience trying to smooth out an unruly head of curly hair,” she said. “That set me thinking about what might work with cork. In the end I got it right. It was 2 a.m., and I woke up my husband to tell him.”

Ms. Grindi made her discovery in 2000, at a time when Italians had to register with the Italian patent office before applying for an international patent. After registering a false recipe locally (Ms. Grindi said she didn’t trust the regional system to protect her formula) she registered the true version with the European patent office

in Munich.

With the patent in place, she decided it was time to transform her dressmakers atelier in central Tempio Pausania into the flagship store for her new venture: Suberis, named for the Latin term for Cork oaks, Quercus suber. The store opened in 2007, and now displays not only garments made with cork, but also bags, shoes, upholstery fabrics, delicate voiles with cork appliqué work and a new twist on cork tiles for interiors. The preva-

lent colors are shades of warm beige with a light, pinkish blush and fine darker veins. For the moment, Subiris products are only available in Tempio Pausania, however they will be going on sale at a store on Via Calabria in Rome at the end of October, when the company will also start selling on its Web site, Suberis.it.

The appeal of cork for these products is the marriage of aesthetics and performance. The fabric is tough and resistant, yet delicate to the touch, and comfortable to wear. While this is largely because of the innate qualities of the purified cork, it is also the fruit of ongoing research by Ms. Grindi, with the University of Cagliari in Sardinia and the Polytechnic in Milan, into improving supporting materials and adhesives.

The underlying technique to create cork fabric involves binding wafer-thin slices of the purified cork by hand with materials from cotton to synthetic cloth, reconstituted leather, carbon fibers or fiberglass, depending on the desired product. The layers are then rolled over and ground down to ensure “a perfectly smooth surface,” Ms. Grindi said. Any overlapping is ground away by sanding and polishing.

The finest cloths by Suberis are delicate voiles with appliqué motifs in cork whose natural colors underline the resemblance to autumn leaves.

They cost around €200, or around

$285, per meter. There are also light cork fabrics covered with decorative, stitched ruches that provide a degree of elasticity.

The sophistication of these fabrics has drawn the attention of major designers. Salvatore Ferragamo, the Italian fashion house that made cork soles fashionable in the 1950s and ’60s, bought cork cloth from Subiris last year to make a gown for the window display in its Avenue Montaigne store in Paris.

One of the company’s most enticing upholstery fabrics is a dark-tinted cork bound to a stronger base and embellished with sewn-on strips of natural-colored cork. It costs around €130 per meter and is classy and practical, because cork is impermeable and stain-proof. As for the one-ofa-kind dresses, the price ranges from €700 to €1500, depending on the detailing.

Ms. Grindi, meanwhile, is engaged in the development of new products for Sardinia’s plentiful cork. She is currently working on some prototypes for indestructible, eco-friendly garden furniture and is investigating the potential of the tough, rot-proof material as a suitable cover for the decks and hulls of yachts. She also believes that her cork-purifying technique could be used to eliminate the risk of cork taint in bottled wines: an endeavor to which many would happily raise a glass.

FASHION & BEAUTY

18

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Nursing Bras That Show Mothers in More Than ‘Work Mode’

By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS

M

ATERNITY and nursing bras have long been the ugly stepsisters to gorgeously constructed lingerie. If you became pregnant or nursed your child, scratchy, unadorned, matronly bras — probably colored inconspicuously “nude” or white — were your lot. Elisabeth Dale, the founder of the Web site The Breast Life, which has bra reviews and health information, says she thinks this was because functionality and sex appeal can seem incompatible.

When your breasts “are in work mode, they don’t get to wear nice fabrics,” she said wryly, adding that you’re “sterilizing” your breasts “by putting them in a boring white milk curtain.”

But perhaps not anymore. Some of today’s maternity and nursing bras boast lace in conspicuous hues like coral or purple, with added features like rhinestones, and nd coy nicknames like Awakened by Her Desire and She Craved a Little Decadenecadence. This, of course, along with convenient venient hooks that allow each cup to drop for easy access to hungry newborns, extra fastenings stenings to accommodate diaphragm growth wth and comfortable linings.

In the last few years, a growing number of niche lingerie companies, likee You Lingerie, Cake, and HOTmilk, have begun egun selling unapologetically provocative materaternity bras that they say can be a pick-me-up -up for new mothers during a stressful time. me.

“It’s really about celebrating the sexy wooman inside the loving mother,” said Lisa Eb-bing, the marketing director at HOTmilk, an import from New Zealand that had one of its video ads of a stunning mother-to-be in a matching bra and panty placed under age restrictions by YouTube after viewers flagged it.

“I love being a mother, but lingerie is not for a mother,” Ms. Ebbing said, defending the images. “It’s for a woman.”

Tiffany Holtzinger, 24, a stay-at-home mother in York, Pa., recalled that, when she decided to breast-feed her third child, she refused to settle for “plain, frumpy-looking bras” that she found “disgusting.” A month after her son’s birth, Mrs. Holtzinger bought Cake’s navy-and-white floral-print balconyshaped bra on Zulily, a daily-deals Web site, to add to her collection of three HOTmilk bras, one in navy with contrasting cobalt mesh frill on cups and straps.

“I can see myself wearing these after I’m done nursing,” she said. (To do just that, Bravado Designs, known for its more basic styles, has a kit to remove shoulder clips after weaning.)

Kirsten Cannon, 20, an actress and

a waitress in Paducah, Ky., says she made do with basic nursing bras she bought at Wal-Mart until her daughter, Georgia, was 9 months old. “I had reached a point that I’d almost forgotten who I was as a woman,” Ms. Cannon said, explaining why she bought HOTmilk’s Radiant in Her Rescue, a peachy floral-print bra offset with gardenia-patterned lace (roughly $40 with underwear). “I needed a pick-me-up. I needed my husband to look at me like I wasn’t just Georgia’s mom.”

Much has changed in the two decades since the Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore naked in her third trimester caused a stir. There is now no shortage of celebrities flaunting bared bumps for magazine covers, or “yummy mummies” at the local playground. Designer maternity garb runs the gamut from flirty too sophisticated. Perhaps it was only a matter of time that expectant and nursing mothers sought out provocative underthings with distinctive details, a world away from the black T-shirt bra look-alikes sold at outlets like Destination Maternity.

Tracey Montford, the designer of Cake Linge-

rie, said she was inspired to wa help start the company, h based in Sydney, Australia, because “baggy matronly lingerie doesn’t make you feel good.”

“I enjoy my fashion,” she said, but “I had horrendous bras peeking through the top and ruining my outfits.”

Apparently Aussies are ahead of the curve, as it were: the model-turned-entrepreneur Elle Macpherson has had a few nursing and maternity styles on the market since 2005.

And since roughly the same time, the British boundary-pushing lingerie company Agent Provocateur has sold its Cupid maternity-nursing bra.

But the average Jane is also venturing into the market. “One of the biggest drivers is women are accepting their bodies for what they are, and not hiding it or being ashamed,” said Uyo Okebie-Eichelberger, the 31-year-old founder of You Lingerie, a 10-month-old company in Atlanta that sells

attractive maternity bras for $29.99 to $34.99.

“Another driver is the rapid growth in size, influence and power of online mommy culture.”

Mrs. Okebie-Eichelberger’s brand, which is carried in 30 brick-and-mortar clothing stores, got exposure from Web sites like The Bump and BabyCenter, she said.

Cake, which came stateside in 2010, now is carried in 100 brick-and-mortar storres, making the United States its “fastest growing market” globally, according to Keigr th Hyams, the company’s marketing director. “We found, to start, some of our pieces with more neutral colors were selling very well,” his colleague, Ms. Montford, said. well, These days, “pieces with a bit more lace, Thes oor adventurous in terms of color combinations are becoming popular,” like the Turkish delight ($59.90), a purple-knit number in either balccony or plunge styles that can be paired with a matching string thong pa ($29.90). ($29 But Kathryn From, the managing director of Bravado, a no-frills line owned by Medela, the breast-pump maker, which is carried in 700 outlets nationwide, is skeptical that such daring items will do much business in the long run. “The No. 1 best seller in North America are smooth cupped nude bras,” she said, adding of her core customer: “We are much more your girlfriend who lives next door. She’s confident, and great, but isn’t overtly sexual.”

SOME find revealing items for nursing mothers “disturbing,” as Kathie Lee Gifford put it on the “Today” show in February, during a Valentine’s Day gifts segment that also featured chocolate handcuffs. “You’re going to breast-feed in that?” exclaimed her co-host, Hoda Kotb, upon seeing a You Lingerie’s Bella Cerise bra on a mannequin.

Ms. Gifford added, “This is just distressing to me.”

Mrs. Okebie-Eichelberger, of You, said the “Today” segment “really enraged a lot of people” for “adding to the propaganda that mothers can’t be sexy,” but she added, it helped propel “our biggest sale ever.”

Heidi Rauch, a 42-year-old founder of Belabumbum, a sleek but understated linge-

rie brand that started selling nursing-bras in 2003, said of the new crop: “They speak to the stereotypical end of what is sexy.

It’s pushing the edge with rhinestones.”

By contrast, she said, “Our stuff will make you feel better in your skin at a time when everything is feeling different, but it’s not like it’s overtly too sexy.”

Indeed, the curious might wonder whether sleep-deprived women facing the challenges of postpartum life are buying lingerie in hopes of actually spurring desire.

But some of the customers of HOTmilk and its ilk said that they were still interested in sex, despite the demands of motherhood.

Melissa Whitford, a 32-year-old pediatric nurse practitioner in Rochester, who has an 8-month-old son and favors Cake’s lingerie, said: “It’s very important, being with your husband, and still having that kind of intimacy. It was him and me first, and he came along because of our love.”

Emily Bergstrom, 34, a fund-raiser in Seattle who just had her third child, bought six Bella Materna bras, and has a few kept after being a fit model. When she’s wearing one, she said, she feels more “supported and attractive.”

“Anything that makes you feel like a person aside from your caregiver role, not instead of, but in addition to the person who does the dishes and picks up the kids, I would say that’s huge,” Ms. Bergstrom said, adding, “sexual intimacy is still a priority.”

Ms. Whitford admitted, though, that sometimes the lace was just to give her a fashion boost. “Even when I’m cleaning up poop and breast-feeding, I like a little bit of glam and a little bit of fancy,” she said.

“That’s just enough to feel good about yourself.”

And while Anne Dimond, who founded Bella Materna with Candace Urquhart (both are former designers for Nordstrom), said she hears from delighted customers who “cheer up because they had felt this loss of self” before they found a flattering bra. She also suggested that this has nothing to do with what happens between the sheets.

“As soon as you have the baby, nobody looks at you anymore,” Ms. Dimond said. “This is to treat yourself.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15- 21, 2011

19

F.D.A. to Review Safety of Popular Bone Drugs

By DUFF WILSON

T

wo advisory panels of the Food and Drug Administration will consider on Friday whether to recommend requiring women who use popular bone drugs like Fosamax to take “drug holidays” because of rising concerns about rare side effects with long-term use, according to people involved in the review.

The panels and F.D.A. staff members are also expected to conduct a comprehensive safety review of the medical evidence to date, after 16 years of growing use of the drugs, to determine whether they have proved to be safe and effective in use longer than three to five years. The recommendation could affect many of the estimated four million women in the United States who take the drugs, called bisphosphonates. Bisphosphonates inhibit a bone renewal process called resorption, adding bone mass, but possibly causing brittleness as well.

Fosamax was first approved in 1995 to treat postmenopausal osteoporosis and Paget’s disease of the bone, conditions that weaken bones. It has also been marketed, controversially, for a pre-osteoporosis condition called osteopenia. The Fosamax patent

expired in 2008 and generics have flooded the market.

The F.D.A. announced in July that it would convene a joint meeting of advisory committees on drug safety and reproductive health to reconsider osteoporosis drugs after evidence surfaced linking long-term use with unusual breaks of the femur or thigh bone, bone death in the jaw, and possibly esophageal cancer.

This summer, the F.D.A. has formulated the questions it will ask the panels of scientific advisers, which are often central to shaping the debate and outcome. The panels meet Friday in Adelphi, Md. The agency usually follows its advisory panels’ advice.

Bisphosphonates reduce hip and spine fractures in some postmenopausal women.

They include Fosamax from Merck, Boniva from Roche Therapeutics, Actonel and Atelvia from Warner Chilcott, and growing numbers of generic copies.

Worldwide sales of bisphosphonates were $7.6 billion last year, down from a peak of $8.8 billion in 2007, with more than 75 percent of sales aimed at osteoporosis and the remainder at tumor-related calcium disorders, according to the data firm IMS Health.

Dollar sales fell after Fosamax faced generic

To Reduce Heartburn, Don’t Eat Four Hours Before Bed

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

M

ost people who get nighttime heartburn have heard the rule about eating before going to sleep: Avoid it. The kitchen cut-off time, doctors say, should be three to four hours before bed.

But does it really make a difference? While the advice is ages old, only recently has it been the focus of studies.

And the verdict, according to researchers, is that it’s a good rule to follow.

In a study published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, a team of researchers put the rule to the test by recruiting 350 people and looking at whether their nighttime eating habits predicted their risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease. After controlling for smoking, body mass index and other things that influence heartburn, the researchers found that eating dinner within three hours of going to bed was associated with a sevenfold

increase in the risk of reflux symptoms.

In another study, carried out at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, researchers directly measured acid levels in 30 reflux patients on two separate nights. On one night, the subjects went to bed two hours after dinner. On another, they had a very early dinner six hours before bedtime. The late evening meal, the study found, created “significantly more” reflux as the subjects were lying on their backs at night.

As for why three to four hours is the threshold, researchers say that is roughly the amount of time it takes for food to clear the stomach. In chronic heartburn, stomach acid slips into the esophagus, and that’s more likely when lying in bed shortly after a meal, when gravity is not helping to keep digestive juices in the stomach.

Eating more than three to four hours before bed reduces the risk of nighttime heartburn.

competition in 2008.

Ronald Rogers, a spokesman for Merck, said the company was responding to two questions from the F.D.A. One is whether the drugs have been proved to be safe and effective for longer term use, he said, while the other is whether to restrict that use or require “drug holidays.” Most research on the drugs is for three to five years, but many women take them indefinitely. Merck is planning to issue its report later this week, Mr. Rogers said.

His account of the questions was confirmed by a bone expert briefed on the F.D.A. plan, who declined to be identified because the F.D.A. is trying to keep it quiet until later this week.

Jeff Ventura, an F.D.A. spokesman, said the agency would disclose its questions and a staff report possibly on Wednesday. He declined further comment.

Last October, the F.D.A. ordered the makers of bisphosphonate drugs to add a warning to their labels about a small increased risk of atypical femur fractures. In 2005, it added a warning about the rare jaw disease called osteonecrosis.

Because the risks may increase with the length of time the drug is taken, whether to impose a stronger warning or even a ban on long-term use is the chief issue facing the advisory panels and the government. There is not a consensus among experts, leaving some clinicians and women uncertain about what is best in individual cases. The F.D.A. recommends women continue taking the drugs as prescribed pending the safety review.

“The risk-to-benefit ratio strongly favors bisphosphonate therapy,” said Dr. Elizabeth J. Shane, a Columbia University professor and bone specialist who was cochairwoman of task forces on the femur and jaw issues for the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. “And while we are upset and worried and do not want to do anything that would cause anybody harm, we don’t want to go back to 1990 and just have nothing for osteoporosis.”

Dr. Shane said the F.D.A. responded well to a society report last year by adding the label warning on atypical femur breaks.

But she said other groups had not adopted the society’s recommendations to develop a specific diagnostic code and national registry to track them.

“We need to figure out who is at risk to have these strange fractures,” Dr. Shane said in an interview. Merck and other companies finance her research projects at Columbia.

Dr. Susan M. Ott, an associate medical professor and bone specialist at the University of Washington, who takes no research funds from industry, summarized the current science in a 12-page review article published

by the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

“In my opinion, after five years in most cases it ought to be stopped,” Dr. Ott said in an interview. She prescribes the drugs for shorter periods, but said evidence shows growing risks and no proven benefits after five years.

“The longest anybody could have taken this drug is 15 years now,” Dr. Ott said. “It’s an ongoing experiment, and there are a few million women in the country who are participating in it. I keep wanting to say, ‘You’re all guinea pigs after five years because that’s when the studies stopped.’ ” Dr. Richard S. Bockman, a member of the F.D.A. Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, one of the two considering the drugs, said he thought the panels might recommend a “drug holiday” for some women. But he termed it “kind of a weak escape” without the benefit of better science.

Dr. Bockman, who is a professor at the Joan and Sanford Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said he did not think there was convincing evidence of harm related to duration of treatment.

As the F.D.A. is issuing its report next Wednesday, lawyers will be selecting a jury for a bellwether Fosamax trial at the United States District Court in Manhattan. Linda Secrest, a Florida woman who used Fosamax from 1998 to 2005, is suing Merck for product liability. She has osteonecrosis of the jaw.

Merck is facing about 1,115 lawsuits over jaw damage and 535 over unusual femur fractures and other bone injuries, the company said last month in a quarterly report. Merck has won three of the first cases to go to court on the jaw damage and lost one, in which the jury awarded $8 million. Merck is appealing. Mr. Rogers said the company was defending all the cases vigorously.

Timothy O’Brien, a lawyer from Pensacola, Fla., who represents Ms. Secrest and the woman who was awarded $8 million, said the F.D.A. panels’ safety review was long overdue. “I’m very glad they’re finally doing a safety review after 16 years,” he said.

20

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Freezing Athletes to Speed Recovery

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

L

ast week, the American sprinter Justin Gatlin showed up at the World Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea, with frostbite on his feet. This condition was painful — he told reporters that he had blisters on both heels — but it was also improbable, given that he’d developed the frostbite in Florida in August.

But Mr. Gatlin had been sampling one of the newest, trendiest innovations in elite athlete training. He’d gone into a whole-body cryotherapy chamber, and his feet had frozen there.

Whole-body cryotherapy is, essentially, ice baths taken to a new and otherworldly level, and it is drawing considerable attention among athletes, both elite and recreational. In the cryotherapy chambers, the ambient temperature is lowered to a numbing minus 110 Celsius or minus 166 Fahrenheit. The chambers were originally intended to treat certain medical conditions, but athletes soon adopted the technology in hopes that supra-subzero temperatures would help them to recover from strenuous workouts more rapidly.

That they would place faith in cold therapy is surprising, given that studies examining the effects of simple ice baths have been, at best, “inconclusive,” said Joseph Costello, a doctoral student in the physical education and sports sciences department at the University of Limerick in Ireland, who is studying the effects of whole-body cryotherapy.

A 2007 study of ice baths found that young men who completed a punishing 90-minute shuttle run and then eased themselves into a frigid bathtub (with the water cooled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes reported feeling markedly less sore a few

days later than a control group who did not soak. But ice baths did not lower the runners’ levels of creatine kinase, often considered a hallmark of muscle damage. They felt better, but their muscles were almost as damaged as if they hadn’t soaked.

Despite such findings, a growing number of elite soccer players, rugby teams, professional cyclists and track and field athletes in the United States and Europe have eagerly turned to whole-body cryotherapy. Because no agency in the United States or Europe regulates it, it’s impossible to say with any precision how many athletes are currently using the treatment, but researchers like Mr. Costello say the numbers are growing rapidly.

Before entering a cryochamber, users must strip to shorts or a bathing suit, remove all jewelry and don several pairs of gloves, a face mask, a woolly headband and dry socks.

Mr. Gatlin neglected that last precaution; his socks were sweaty from a previous workout and froze instantly to his feet. The athletes then move through an acclimatization chamber set to about minus 76 Fahrenheit and from there into the surface-of-the-moon-chilly cryotherapy chamber.

At minus 110 degrees Celsius, wholebody cryotherapy is “colder than any temperature ever experienced or recorded on earth,” Mr. Costello said.

The athletes remain in the chamber for no more than two or three minutes, stamping their feet and waving their arms to retain circulation. A Welsh rugby player described the experience as being in an “evil” sauna, but told British reporters that he believed that the sessions were helping him to recover more quickly from rigorous practices.

The science to support that optimistic appraisal is slim, though. A study by Mr.

The American sprinter Justin Gatlin after competing in the men’s 100-meter race at the International Association of Athletics Federations’ world championships in Daegu, South Korea.

Costello, published earlier this year in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, found that whole-body cryotherapy did not lessen muscle damage among a group of volunteers who’d completed grueling resistance exercises with their legs before entering the chamber.

Another study, however, published in July in the Public Library of Science One, produced more encouraging results. For it, French researchers recruited a group of trained runners and put them through a simulated 48-minute trail run on a treadmill.

The workout was designed to elicit muscle damage and soreness. Afterward, half of the runners entered a whole-body cryotherapy chamber once a day for five days. The rest sat quietly for 30 minutes a day for those five days. Blood was drawn from both groups throughout the experiment.

From the first day onward, the runners who’d entered the chamber showed fewer blood markers of inflammation than the group who had recovered by sitting quietly.

These results suggest that athletes could potentially “save two to three days” of training time compared with forgoing whole-body cryotherapy, François Bieuzen, a professor at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance in Paris and lead

author of the study, wrote in an e-mail. By using the therapy, tired athletes could return to hard training sooner.

But Alan Donnelly, a professor at the University of Limerick and Mr. Costello’s adviser and co-author, is unconvinced. Reducing inflammation, he points out, does not ensure that muscles have recovered. The French researchers did not directly test muscle strength and function after the cryotherapy sessions. So it’s possible that the athletes’ muscles, although less inflamed, were still weak and damaged.

“I just don’t feel that the evidence base for WBC effectiveness is there yet,” Dr. Donnelly said. “If WBC were a clinical treatment or a nutritional aid being put forward for F.D.A. approval, my view is that it would not be approved.”

Such skepticism is not cooling enthusiasm among athletes, however. A cryotherapy chamber that caters to recreational athletes opened in Northern California last month. Its instructional materials caution users to check that all body parts and clothing, including socks, are completely dry before entering the chamber. Frostbite, as Mr. Gatlin discovered, will impede athletic performance. In his signature event, the 100-meter dash, he did not make the finals.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

21 SCIENCE / TECH

Sound, the Way the Brain Prefers to Hear It

By GUY GUGLIOTTA

T

here is, perhaps, no more uplifting musical experience than hearing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah” performed in a perfect space. Many critics regard Symphony Hall in Boston — 70 feet wide, 120 feet long and 65 feet high — as just that space.

Some 3,000 miles away, however, a visitor led into the pitch-blackness of Chris Kyriakakis’s audio lab at the University of Southern California to hear a recording of the performance would have no way to know how big the room was.

At first it sounded like elegant music played in the parlor on good equipment. Nothing special. But as engineers added combinations of speakers, the room seemed to expand and the music swelled in richness and depth, until finally it was as if the visitor were sitting with the audience in Boston.

Then the music stopped and the lights came on. It turned out that the Immersive Audio Lab at U.S.C.’s Viterbi School of Engineering is dark, a bit dingy, and only 30 feet wide, 45 feet long and 14 feet high.

Acousticians have been designing concert halls for more than a century, but Dr. Kyriakakis does something different. He shapes the sound of music to conform to the space in which it is played. The goal is what Dr. Kyriakakis calls the “ground truth” — to replicate the original in every respect.

“We remove the room,” he said, “so the ground truth can be delivered.”

Dr. Kyriakakis, an electrical engineer at U.S.C. and the founder and chief technical officer of Audyssey Laboratories, a Los Angeles-based audio firm, could not achieve his results without modern sound filters and digital microprocessors.

But the basis of his technique is rooted in the science of psychoacoustics, the study of sound perception by the human auditory system. “It’s about the human ear and the human brain, and understanding how the human ear perceives sound,” Dr. Kyriakakis said.

Psychoacoustics has become an invaluable tool in designing hearing aids and cochlear implants, and in the study of hearing generally. “Psychoacoustics is fundamental,” said Andrew J. Oxenham, a psychologist and hearing expert at the University of Minnesota. “You need to know how the normally functioning auditory system works — how sound relates to human perception.”

The field’s origins date back more than a century, to the first efforts to quantify the psychological properties of sound.

What tones could humans hear, and how loudly or softly did they need to be heard?

Pitch could be measured in hertz and loudness in decibels, but other phenomena were not so easily quantified.

Human hearing can discern the movement of sound with a surprising degree of accuracy. It can distinguish timbre, the difference between a clarinet and a saxophone. It can remember patterns of speech, to immediately identify a friend in a phone call years after last hearing the voice. And a parent can effortlessly sift the sound of an infant’s cry from the blare of a televised football game.

Finally there were the imponderables, things we do with our hearing simply because we can. “Everyone knows the sound of a bowling ball as it rolls down the alley,” said William M. Hartmann, a Michigan State University physicist and former president of the Acoustical Society of America.

“What is it about that sound that we can identify?”

For much of the 20th century, engineers devoted themselves to developing acoustical hardware like amplifiers,

speakers and recording systems. After World War II, scientists learned how to use mathematical formulas to “subtract” unwanted noise from sound signals. Then they learned how to make sound signals without any unwanted noise.

Next came stereo. By recording two tracks, engineers could localize sound for the listener. “Simple enough,” said Alan Kraemer, chief technological officer for SRS Labs, an audio company in Santa Ana, Calif. “If something’s louder on one side, you’ll hear it on that side.”

But stereo had no real psychoacoustics. It created an artificial sense of space with a second track, but did so by dealing with only one variable — loudness — and enhanced human perception simply by suggesting that listeners separate their speakers.

The digital age changed all this, allowing engineers to manipulate sound in ways that had never been tried before.

They could create sounds that had never existed, eliminate sounds they did not want and use constant changes in filter combinations to deliver sound to listeners with a fidelity that had never before been possible.

Digital technology has led to innovations that have been critical in improving sound reproduction, in tailoring hearing aids for individual patients and in treating hearing impairment and developing cochlear implants — tiny electronic devices linking sound directly to the auditory nerve of a deaf person.

“Hearing aids are not the same as glasses,” said Dr. Oxenham, at the University of Minnesota. “It’s never been just about hearing sound; it’s also about understanding sound and separating it from background noise. We can help with microprocessors. Without them it would have been impossible.”

Despite recent advances, however, psychoacoustics has shown engineers that they still have a long way to go.

No machine can yet duplicate the ability of the human ear to understand a conversation in a crowded restaurant. People with cochlear implants have “a terrible time” with background noise, Dr. Oxenham said. They also have trouble with pitch perception and distinguishing the sounds of different instruments. “Hearing loops,” which are transmitters that broadcast sound signals directly to a receiver in a hearing aid, are catching on in concert halls, places of worship and even subway booths.

“The technology is really being strained,” said Dr. Hartmann, at Michigan State. Because of psychoacoustics, “we know so much more, and therefore we can do so much more,” but “there is so much more to do.”

One factor that slows the pace of innovation, Dr. Hartmann suggested, is that the human auditory system is “highly nonlinear.” It is difficult to isolate or change a single variable — like loudness — without affecting several others in unanticipated ways. “Things don’t follow an intuitive pattern,” he said.

It was this anomaly, in part, that led Dr. Kyriakakis in the 1990s to venture into psychoacoustics. He, his U.S.C. film school associate Tomlinson Holman, and their students were trying to improve the listening qualities of a room by measuring sound with strategically placed microphones.

“Often our changes were worse than doing nothing at all,” Dr. Kyriakakis recalled. “The mic liked the sound, but the human ear wasn’t liking it at all. We needed to find out what we had to do. We had to learn about psychoacoustics.”

The trick was to establish a baseline for what sounded best, and there was no guidebook. So Dr. Kyriakakis and his

students went to Boston Symphony Hall in 1998 to conduct a series of sound tests and to record the “Messiah.”

At that time, acousticians had long known that a shoebox-shaped concert hall like Boston’s offered the best sound, but what was important for Dr. Kyriakakis was to know why the human ear and the human brain that processed the signal felt that way.

Back in Los Angeles, his team began a series of simple experiments. Listeners were invited into the labs to hear the Boston tests and music and to rate the sound, using a scale of 1 to 5. Researchers shifted the sound to different combinations of speakers around the room.

Statistics showed that speakers directly ahead, combined with speakers 55 degrees to either side of the listener, provided the most attractive soundstage. The “wide” speakers mimicked the reflection from the side walls of the concert hall by causing the sound to arrive at the listener’s ears milliseconds after the sound from the front. Sound from other angles did not have as great an effect.

Next, the team asked listeners what combination of speakers gave the best impression of “depth of stage.” Here again, statistics showed a clear preference for speakers in front of listeners and high above them. This sound — also slightly delayed — gave the ear and the human brain a sense of where the different instruments were on a bandstand.

With these results as his template, Dr. Kyriakakis founded Audyssey. His idea was to make dens and living rooms sound like concert halls and movie theaters. Microprocessors made it possible to filter sound to minimize distortion and add the delays that make the music sound nearly perfect to the human ear from anywhere in the room.

Audyssey’s first product, MultEQ, started with a fivespeaker configuration, but for a full concert-hall-like effect, it now offers what Dr. Kyriakakis calls an “11.2” system: three speakers in front of the listener; two elevated speakers; two wides; two speakers slightly behind the listener, and two speakers directly in back. Audio-video receivers with Audyssey’s latest MultEQ technology cost $1,000 to $2,000.

For the unsophisticated listener, top-of-the-line sound equipment by itself seems good enough, but it is not like the psychoacoustically adjusted version. A video of the Eagles singing “Hotel California” sounded nice to a visitor until Audyssey’s hardware director, Andrew Turner, pointed out that there was no bass when the volume was low. He flicked a switch and the bass returned, enriching the music with startling effect.

“At the concert itself, where there was a big room with a lot of high-volume sound, you could hear the low tones,” he said. “But here in the studio, your brain is filtering them out as irrelevant at low volume. So you have to restore them.

“It’s pure psychoacoustics.”

modern love

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

To Keep but Not Be Kept

By DEANNA FEI

O

NE balmy evening in Shanghai, my boyfriend and I were strolling home from dinner when two boozy blond men called to us. Expecting a plea for directions, we stopped. The men leered at me and grinned at my boyfriend.

“Where’s the party?” they asked jovially. “You know, Chinese girls. Where can we get one of these?”

They meant me.

My boyfriend cursed at them and held me close as we crossed the street, but I dropped his hand. For the six months we’d been together, we had endured more than our share of stares, from curious to smug to hostile, from Chinese and Westerners and everyone in between. But nothing had been as flagrant as this. Suddenly, I felt as if those men had seen the truth, while what we knew of ourselves was a sham.

He was no longer the boyfriend whose home I shared, the journalist whose dedication and drive kept me inspired, the man who scratched my back through entire seasons of “The Sopranos.” In that moment, he was just a laowai, another foreigner in China taking home an Asian woman like a souvenir.

And I was no longer the girlfriend he loved, the native New Yorker like him, the Chinese-American who had moved to Shanghai on a Fulbright to research a novel, the woman who challenged him on a daily (he’d say hourly) basis. I was just another local naïf, maybe a gold digger, possibly a prostitute.

My boyfriend tried to reason with me. Those men were bumbling tourists.

The truth of our relationship was in the life we shared. He said, “All we can do is be who we are.”

But that was part of the problem. He was a successful white man ensconced in cushy expatriate life. I was a young Asian female who had somehow ended up living off him.

We had met at a reading sponsored by the United States Consulate. He told me later he was struck by the question I asked the author as much as by my eyes. I liked his authoritative yet easygoing presence, the unassuming way he talked about his work, the respectful way he asked about mine.

I had a strange feeling of warmth and well-being sitting beside him. But I didn’t see him as a romantic prospect, not

even when he asked for my number. My reasons were both superficial and not. He towered over me by more than a foot. He was at a different stage of life. He was a laowai in Shanghai.

Back home, I had grown up grimacing with my girlfriends at what seemed to be the rampant coupling of white men in pursuit of the exotic with Asian women seeking a socioeconomic boost. Partly for this reason, I had always tended to avoid dating white men. It wasn’t until I moved to Shanghai that this preference became a principle.

Everywhere I looked, “yellow fever” seemed amplified to a cartoonish extreme: paunchy white businessmen towing petite Chinese girls decades their junior; personal ads seeking “hot Asian women, no English required”; local call girls working the lobbies of hotels.

But when the journalist called, that warm feeling washed over me again. I agreed to meet him. Drinks stretched into dinner, then into a weekend, at the end of which I remembered to tell him that my time in China was nearly done. My grant was expiring. I missed my family and friends. I was tired of Shanghai.

He was about to embark on a 10-day reporting trip down the Mekong River through southwestern China and into Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. After that, he was heading to Sudan, then Europe. By the time he returned, I’d be gone.

He asked me to join him on the Mekong. I reminded him we hardly knew each other. This was more than a fling, he said.

When I mentioned I couldn’t afford the trip, he offered to cover everything. I had never been dependent on a man, and I didn’t like the prospect. He didn’t want my dependence or even gratitude. All he asked was the chance to prove that our connection couldn’t be dismissed.

So I found myself floating down the Mekong beside him, interviewing farmers on the riverbanks, writing on boat decks, swimming in pools lighted by the grand wings of former French colonial mansions.

Halfway through, he began persuading me to live with him. By the end, I could no longer laugh off the notion.

He was wildly romantic yet matterof-fact about our situation. He received a salary for pursuing his passion; I didn’t. If I returned to New York, I might abandon my novel to pay rent; he could prevent

that. We both knew I would never choose a man for money. How could I walk away from him for my lack of it?

I wrestled with what people would think; how any man could support a woman he had just met and expect an egalitarian relationship; whether I could compromise my independence without losing myself.

A few months before, a fortune teller at a temple in Hong Kong had warned me that my self-reliance might propel me, career-wise, to a glorious treetop on a mountain peak, but leave me sitting there alone. In fact, this trait had undone every previous relationship.

Back in Shanghai, I gathered my belongings from the mice-infested studio where, for more than a year, I had fallen asleep to the screeching of stray cats and woken to the songs of rickshaw vendors.

I moved into the journalist’s 3,000-square-foot perch in the V.I.P. tower of a hotel compound where President Nixon and his delegation once stayed.

I learned to smile less uneasily at the doormen who rushed to greet us; to focus on my computer as the housekeeper worked around me; to leave my wallet in a drawer whenever we ate out.

When we traveled — throughout China and to Vietnam, India, Turkey, Italy, Hungary — I often carried nothing. He had the currency, itinerary and keys, so why not my passport? None of this affected the way we debated books, edited each other’s work, excavated our pasts and built a relationship in which we each felt we had finally met our match.

He never expressed reservations about our arrangement. In fact, he’d begun talking of marriage. And though marriage seemed a remote possibility to me, I began to understand his vision: a future where not only our finances, but every twist of fate would be shared. In truth, my financial dependence was breaking down my cynicism about romance. I could no longer tell myself, as I had with every previous boyfriend, that I didn’t need him.

“You’re a keeper,” he liked to say. “I had to grab you and keep you.” This became our joke, until we encountered those blond men. After that, in my own eyes, I wasn’t just a keeper: I was a possession, a woman being kept.

Other realities I hadn’t quite faced: my mother’s pointed remarks about how women had nothing without financial au-

tonomy; a mutter from my father that I’d become a laowai’s mistress; the incredulity of friends who knew I had paid the bills by working as a teacher, a salesclerk, a waitress, while devoting my spare time to writing. Now here I was trying to finish a novel about a family of fiercely independent women touring their ancestral home of China, while I lived like a trophy wife.

I started to persuade myself that this was temporary. I joked to friends that my boyfriend was my latest fellowship. I told him there’d be no more talk of marriage.

He was hurt but figured I’d come around.

Over the next months, the relationship continued as before, even as I told myself that, any moment, I would resume my real identity.

ONE evening, we sped toward yet another hotel in a taxi, having flown into the otherworldly beauty of Guilin. I was fighting a cold and weary of travel as we hurtled past lush banyan trees and jutting karst formations. I thought he was focused on the scenery when, out of the falling darkness, he said my name, first and last, so quietly he might’ve been talking to himself. He said he would love me forever. I started to make a lighthearted rejoinder.

He said: “I love generations before you and generations after. I love your children. I hope to be their father.” As his words suffused me, I realized that all the time I had tried to convince myself our present would soon be the past, it was unspooling into our future. I had fretted over the connotations of being kept, yet forgotten the basic meaning. He wanted to keep me, and I wanted to keep him. This was for keeps.

In the six years since that evening, we have moved back to New York, weathered ups and downs in each of our incomes, bought a home, married and are now expecting our first child: traditional steps in the human pursuit of permanence, if not in traditional order. Still, when I think about what will remain, I remember those words he uttered in a cab as the treetops and karst hills blurred into twilight.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

23

The Guánica State Forest

The vegetation in the forest is divided into three main groups: upland deciduous forest (which occupies 23.5 square kilometres / 9.1 square miles), semi-evergreen forest (7.2 square kilometres / 2.8 square miles), and scrub forest (5.8 square kilometres / 2.2

Geography

T

he Guánica State Forest (Spanish: Bosque Estatal de Guánica) is a subtropical dry forest located in southwest Puerto Rico. The area was designated as a forest reserve in 1919 and a United Nations Biosphere Reserve in 1981. It is considered the best preserved, subtropical forest and the best example of dry forest in the Caribbean.

Located in the dry orographic rain shadow of the Cordillera Central, Puerto Rico’s driest area, temperatures in the forest are, on average, around 80 °F (27 °C) in shaded areas and 100 °F (38 °C) in exposed areas. The average temperature is 25.3 °C (77.5 °F) and the average annual rainfall is 791 millimetres (31.1 in).

Flora and fauna Approximately half of Puerto Rico’s birds and nine of 16 the endemic bird species occur in the Guánica State Forest.

square miles). Similar to other insular dry forests species diversity is low; between 30 and 50 tree species are found per ha. More than 700 plant species, of which 48 are endangered and 16 are endemic to the forest, occur within the forest.

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 -21, 2011

Day-Tripping in Segovia (and Counting Euro Pennies)

By SETH KUGEL

I

f you’ve never peered into 12th-century churches, meandered down cobblestone streets or pretended to dump boiling oil over ancient city walls onto barbarians below, a day in Segovia is a piece of frugal cake.

Figure 20 euros for the 27-minute train from Madrid, 10 euros for lunch and another 4.50 to enter the celebrated castle. Voilà: you’ve got a day trip for around 35 euros per person (or about $50 at $1.42 to the euro).

But if you’re wary of yet another old town full of churches and castles, preventing Segovia from giving you the blahs requires either a budget (to feast on the town’s specialty — roast suckling pig — and to hire a knowledgeable tour guide), or an alternative method for visiting picture-perfect, potentially soul-free cities that now exist mainly for tourism.

Segovia, of course, wasn’t built for tourists: this city of around 60,000 dates back to pre-Roman times and is best known for its

castle and stunning aqueduct, which towers over the square it bisects. Along with Toledo, the city has become a standard day trip from Madrid.

But therein lies the problem: My budget suffers neither roast suckling pigs nor private tour guides, and I hate “standard day trips” that involve traipsing around with crowds.

So after I rode the wave of visitors into the tourist information office, where I was handed a map and heard the practiced here-are-

the-highlights speech, I devised a three-step plan.

First, I identified a few top attractions that interested me, as opposed to ones that others consider must-sees. The monastery, that can wait. The castle and aqueduct, I’m in. The contemporary art museum looked intriguing and the dozens of churches, well, maybe a peek at those as I happened by.

Second, I looked for areas of the old city with a few ancillary attractions, and also lots of back streets for wandering.

Third, I was on the lookout for some sort of adventure. Perhaps a photographic project: picturesque streetlights, quirky doors, the local senior citizenry.

Or anything else that might arise, as it did for me after I had taken in the utterly impressive stretch of Roman aqueduct that rises more than 90 feet as it crosses the city. I had entered some back streets and was settling upon streetlights as a photographic theme when I wandered into a quiet plaza overlooking the neighboring countryside. There, a middle-aged woman was walking arm-

in-arm with her father. Must. Engage. With.

Picturesque. Locals. I considered possible questions to ask. “Where is the cathedral?”

Dumb. “How’s the economy?” Weird. “What are your favorite restaurants?” Perfect.

After initial pleasantries, including her depressingly quick identification of my Spanish accent as American, the woman said I might like the Cueva de San Esteban. It was already on my short list (it has a below-10euro prix fixe option and some acclaim from online reviewers), so I gave her a cringing look that I hoped communicated “What isthis, amateur hour?” but probably just made me look like a sourpuss.

“There are others,” she continued. “But they are farther away.”

Do tell.

She mentioned a cluster of restaurants on the two-lane highway heading out of town, and gave me vague walking directions involving lots of pointing toward a distant church. She said I’d go along a paseito, a vague term for a little passage or narrow street, but otherwise I had no idea what she was tal

The San Juan Weekly Star

lking about. It was about 45 minutes’ walk, she said.

Risk assessment time: I had already wandered the city and poked my head into enough adorable churches for the day. If I did the walk, ate and came back, I could take in the castle and maybe hit a museum before heading back to the train. If I got lost, didn’t see anything interesting and wasted time, I would lose precisely half a day of churchpeeping and taking photos of streetlights.

Hardly tragic.

I left the walled city through a rear gate that seemed barely in use, and strolled down a path in the general direction of that church.

When I looked up I realized I was practically right under the castle, and stumbled into the lush, manicured park that occupies a slope on its north side. I was the park’s only visitor; as if to prove how utterly unused it was, the only other human being in sight was a security officer talking on a cellphone as he hand-fed bread to a half-dozen peacocks. He slunk off to his booth when I arrived, as if he had been neglecting his duty, though it’s not as if there were intruders galore waiting to be snapped into the handcuffs han ging from his belt. I schmoozed with the peacocks a bit myself, but they didn’t like me as much as they did the guard and moved on.

Then I was out of the city, where I followed a marked trail (the Camino Natural del Eresma) for a quarter-mile to a lookout of the castle. I passed through the Fuencisla

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Arch, apparently the official entry point to the city, and out along a narrow road with a pedestrian walkway alongside it that seemed much like a paseito. A bit farther, I came across a small cluster of houses that included a few restaurants.

I chose the one that seemed to have the most activity, Mesón el Arriero, where I found decade-old hams with hooves still attached hung above the bar, waiters who spit sunflower-seed shells out on the floor and a crowd of locals who were greeted by name and, in one instance, with an unusual question. “Timoteo, did you eat yet?” a man was asked, an odd question for someone who had just entered a restaurant at lunchtime.

“Yes, I ate at home,” the man replied.

Just visiting, I suppose.

In what must be the ultimate sign that a restaurant caters to neighbors rather than tourists, I was thoroughly ignored for half an hour as staff members chatted it up with

regulars. When the younger staff members ignored my requests, I bothered an older woman who appeared to be presiding over the staff but had sat down at the table next to mine. She obliged, listing choices from the unwritten 9-euro lunch prix fixe menu. I chose a traditional gazpacho and some sort of Cornish hen-like bird in a vinegary escabeche, and flan for dessert. There was no extra charge for two bottles of water, nor for the conversation with my savior. If not for her, I might never have eaten or have talked to anyone, though being a fly on the wall at this local scene would still have been worth it.

On the walk back I took a different route, taking in the castle from several angles and suppressing an unexpected desire to put on a coat of armor and storm it. Though occasional cars passed, I ran into only two other pedestrians, just outside the remnants of an ancient Jewish cemetery outside the city walls. (Segovia had a significant Jewish population before the Inquisition.)

I arrived back in town and, with time to visit only one more attraction, chose the castle over the museum. Ordered up in something close to its current form as a residence for King Alfonso VIII in the 12th century, it was built and rebuilt over the centuries, at times serving as a school and a prison. Many claim it was the model for Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World, but the folks at Disney credit French castles, not Spanish ones.

As I arrived, a tour was starting up, and since it was just a euro extra to join, I went

25

along. There was plenty of cool stuff to see, like coats of armor and ornate old furniture.

But the most impressive parts of the castle required tilting your head up: the ceilings, which ranged from gilded to elaborate polychrome wood to friezes of Asturian kings to stained glass. The least impressive part was the monotone tour guide, reciting obviously memorized tidbits that could better have been delivered by a robot (or, better, an MP3 audio tour).

I’ll take vague directions to faraway restaurants over monotone tour guides any day. Though an ideal day in Segovia probably requires a little of each.

IF YOU GO There are several high-speed trains leaving the Chamartin station in Madrid each morning and returning in the afternoon or early evening, though if you want the cheaper fare (19.10 euros), be sure you go on those labeled “Avant” on Renfe’s Web site.

Trains are met by a public bus that costs the very odd sum of 88 euro cents, and drivers are ready with the rare, Lilliputian 2-cent coins for your change. The bus lets you off right near the aqueduct; cross under and pick up a map from the tourist information office to see just how many churches you’ll never be able to see in a day. If you want to find Mesón El Arriero and its 9-euro lunch without random wandering, head out highway 310; it’s on the right not far past the Fuencisla Arch walking away from town. English-language tours of the Segovia castle are available only by previous arrangement.

WANTED SALES REPRESENTATIVES

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Please send your references and resume by fax to:

Para más información llame al:

(787) 743-5100 or by email at

(787) 203-6245

cmarrero@periodicolasemana.com

We will not accept phone calls

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept 15 - 21, 2011

Who Lost Work During the Great Recession?

By CASEY B. MULLIGAN

Y

oung people have seen their work hours drop the most during this recession, while the elderly are actually working more than they did before.

Using data from the Census Bureau’s Household Survey via the National Bureau of Economic Research, I calculated the average hours worked by age for 2007 (people not working during the week of the survey count as zero hours worked) and then again for 2010. The chart below displays each age group’s percentage change from 2007 to 2010. For example, the chart shows that the average 16-year-old in 2010 worked 40 percent fewer hours than the average 16-year-old did in 2007.

Author’s calculation from Census Bureau Household Survey We all know that hours worked in 2010 were considerably fewer than they were before the recession began, which the chart shows: most of the age groups have a negative percentage change.

But the chart also shows that labor losses lessen with age and are positive for a number of age groups. In percentage terms, work hours fell the most for teenagers, reflecting the high teenage unemployment rate. After the teenagers, work hours fell the most for the age groups 20 to 29. Work-hours losses for groups in their

30s and 40s ranged 5 to 11 percent. Work hours also fell for age groups 50 to 59, but typically less in percentage terms than for the age groups aged less than 50.

As I noted a few weeks ago, average work hours actually increased for the oldest age groups.

Seniority layoff practices would tend to reduce hours worked most for young people because, naturally, they tend to be employers’ more recent hires. You might think it would make sense for employers to retain their most experienced workers, but downsizing employers tend to offer and encourage early retirement to people in their 50s and early 60s, who are paid more than recent hires and are starting to think about leaving the workplace.

Yet the chart does not show especially large declines in hours for those age groups (nor can seniority practices by themselves explain why the elderly end up working more).

Of course, an employer that shuts down does not lay off based on seniority but lays off everyone.

Another possibility is that the labor market distinguishes, at least in a rough way, among workers according to their willingness to work, and that the stock market and housing market crashes have especially stimulated older people to work more. (Young people, on the other hand,

had fewer assets before the recession, so a decline in asset prices has little direct impact on them.) This effect tends to increase with age because the propensity to own assets for current needs and future retirement also increases with age.

To the extent that minimum wages reduce employment of people who would otherwise earn a wage less than the minimum, the minimum wage increases of 2007, 2008 and 2009 may be another factor, because propensity to earn near the minimum wage tends to decline with age

(although that propensity is not particularly low for the elderly, who do not have work-hours losses on average).

It is also possible that the ability to efficiently find a new job in a tough labor market is a skill, and people tend to accumulate that skill with age.

Economists are still digesting the labor market data from the Great Recession, but for now it appears that getting back to the pre-recession labor market especially requires creating jobs for young people.

U.S. Slides, Singapore Rises in Competitiveness Survey

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH

T

he United States is slipping and emerging markets are improving, but European economies still dominate the list of the most competitive economies in the world, according to a World Economic Forum report released Wednesday.

For the third consecutive year, Switzerland ranked first in the forum’s annual competitiveness survey , which assesses countries based on 12 categories including innovation, infrastructure and the macroeconomic environment.

The United States — which topped the list in 2008 — continued its decline, also for the third year in a row, falling one place to fifth position. The weaker performance was attributed to economic vulnerabilities as well as “some aspects of the United States’ institutional environment,” notably low public trust in politicians and

concerns about government inefficiency.

Singapore overtook Sweden to claim the second position. But perhaps surprisingly, given the crisis of confidence that continues to plague the European financial system, Western European countries dominated survey’s top 10 economies.

Behind Sweden, Finland ranked fourth, Germany was sixth, followed by the Netherlands and Denmark. Britain was in tenth; France was 18th and indebted Greece slid to 90th.

The results show that while competitiveness in advanced economies has stagnated over recent years, it has improved in many emerging markets, helping their economies to become more robust and mirroring the shift in economic activity from the West to developing economies, the Geneva-based forum said.

“Much of the developing world is still seeing relatively strong growth, des-

pite some risk of overheating, while most advanced economies continue to experience sluggish recovery, persistent unemployment and financial vulnerability, with no clear horizon for improvement,” Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the forum, said in a statement.

China, ranked 26th and up one place on a year earlier, was the highest placed of the large developing economies. Among the other major emerging economies, South Africa was 50th, Brazil 53rd, India 56th and Russia 66th.

Among major Asian economies, Japan ranked ninth and Hong Kong 11th.

Qatar was the highest ranked country in the Middle East, at 14th, followed

by Saudi Arabia at 17th. The United Arab Emirates stood at 27th.

The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and a survey of over 14,000 executives in 142 economies.

Together they form an index, which was introduced in 2004.

The index takes account of 12 categories: institutions; infrastructure; economic environment; health and primary education; higher education and training; goods market efficiency; labor market efficiency; financial market development; technological readiness; market size; business sophistication; and innovation.

“For the recovery to be put on a more stable footing, emerging and developing economies must ensure that growth is based on productivity enhancements,” said Xavier Sala-i-Martin, a professor of economics, at Columbia University and co-author of the report. “Advanced economies, many of which struggle with fiscal challenges and anaemic growth, need to focus on competitiveness-enhancing measures in order to create a virtuous cycle of growth and ensure solid economic recovery.”

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

27

Saab Files for Court Protection While It Awaits Chinese Cash

By DAVID JOLLY

S

wedish carmaker Saab sought court protection from creditors until investments from Chinese companies materialize, heading off the break-up of the company.

Saab Automobile and two subsidiaries, Saab Automobile Powertrain and Saab Automobile Tools, filed for “voluntary reorganization” with the District Court in Vanersborg, Sweden, according to a statement from Saab’s parent company, Swedish Automobile, which is based in Zeewolde, Netherlands. Overseas units are not affected by the filing.

The companies “are of the opinion that, considering Saab Automobile’s current limited financial resources, a voluntary reorganization will entail the best preconditions for using existing resources in the most efficient way,” the statement said.

Swedish Automobile, formerly known as Spyker Cars, bought Saab from General Motors in 2010 with plans to turn the company around. But Saab, whose cars had a relatively small but enthusiastic following, has struggled simply to stay afloat, missing payrolls and shutting down production at its

main Trollhattan, Sweden plant since June because suppliers refused to continue providing credit.

Faced with uncertain prospects for recovery, Saab’s employees are growing increasingly anxious. They have not been paid for August, and were paid late for both June and July. Unions have been considering a legal challenge that could have led the company into bankruptcy.

As part of the three-month reorganization plan, Saab’s court-appointed administrator will ask the Swedish government to guarantee that all Saab Automobile employees be paid, though the company will have to repay the state. The company also said it hopes to gain the support of creditors for its plan, as it is aiming to fully reimburse them.

Unions said the company’s maneuver would forestall their legal action.

“The decision to seek reorganization can be a positive solution for Saab,” Stefan Lofven, an IF Metall union spokesman, said in a statement. He called on the court to deal swiftly with the company’s application “so union members can get a quick decision on whether they will be paid under the state

guarantee.”

Saab has signed what it called “binding agreements” with two Chinese partners this year, but said it has not yet received any of the promised investments.

Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile agreed in June to pay €136 million, or $191 million, for a 29.9 percent stake in Swedish Automobile. Pang Da Automobile Trade said in May that it would pay €109 million for 24 percent of Swedish Automobile.

Saab said that the Chinese deals remained “subject to obtaining certain approvals.”

It did not elaborate, but Chinese companies investing abroad must first obtain the approval of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, something that has not yet been forthcoming.

A previous deal with another Chinese company, Hawtai, foundered after it was denied approval.

Both Chinese companies support the filing, Victor Muller, chief executive of both Saab and the parent company, said in the statement.

“We have concluded that a voluntary reorganization process will provide us with

the necessary time, protection and stabilization of the business, allowing salary payments to be made, short-term funding to be obtained and an orderly restart of production to be prepared,” Mr. Muller said.

A spokeswoman for the company, Gunilla Gustavs, declined to comment on the amount of bridge financing required. She stressed that Saab is not seeking to shed debt in the reorganization, and remains a going concern.

Liu Shibo, a spokesman in the Beijing office of Pang Da, had no immediate comment but said the company was planning to release a statement later.

Zhejiang Youngman Lotus, part of the China Youngman Automobile Group, had no immediate comment.

Trading in Swedish Automobile shares, which have fallen almost 80 percent this year, was suspended.

Pang Da has one of the biggest chains of car dealerships in China. The 470,000 cars it sold last year account for nearly 3 percent of the Chinese market.

Saab said it was unaffected and would provide customer service “well into the future.”

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The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept 15 - 21, 2011

In Euro Zone, Banking Fear Feeds on Itself

By LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

R

emember the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Europeans certainly do.

As Europe struggles to contain its government debt crisis, the greatest fear is that one of the Continent’s major banks may fail, setting off a financial panic like the one sparked by Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008.

European policy makers, determined to avoid such a catastrophe, are prepared to use hundreds of billions of euros of bailout money to prevent any major bank from failing.

But questions continue to mount about the ability of Europe’s banks to ride out the crisis, as some are having a harder time securing loans needed for daily operations.

American financial institutions, seeking to inoculate themselves from the growing risks, are increasingly wary of making new short-term loans in some cases and are pulling back from doing business with their European counterparts — moves that could exacerbate the funding problems of European banks.

Similar withdrawals, on a much larger scale, forced Lehman into bankruptcy, as banks, hedge funds and others took steps to shield their own interests even though it helped set in motion the broader market crisis.

Turmoil in Europe could quickly spread across the Atlantic because of the intertwined nature of the global financial system. In addition, it could further damage the already struggling economies elsewhere.

“This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers,” said George Soros, the hedge fund investor, citing the lack of an authoritative pan-European body to handle a banking crisis of this severity. “That is why the problem is so serious. You need a crisis to create the political will for Europe to create such an

authority, but there is still no understanding as to what the authority will do.”

The growing nervousness was reflected in financial markets Tuesday, with stocks in the United States and Europe falling 1 percent and European bank stocks falling 5 percent or more after steep drops in recent weeks.

European bank shares are now at their lowest point since March 2009, when the global banking system was still shaky following Lehman’s collapse.

Investors also continued to seek the safety of United States Treasury bonds, as yields on 10-year bonds briefly touched 1.90 percent, the lowest ever, before closing at 1.98 percent.

Adding to the anxiety, several immediate challenges face European officials as they try to calm markets worried about the debt crisis spreading.

In the coming weeks, the 17 countries of the euro currency zone each could agree to a July deal brokered to bail out Greece again and possibly the region’s ailing banks. Along with getting unanimity, more immediate obstacles could trip up the agreement.

On Wednesday, Germany’s top court upheld the legality of Berlin’s rescue packages, but said any future bailouts for debt-stricken euro zone countries must be approved by a parliamentary panel. On Thursday, officials in Finland are to express their conditions for approving the deal, and other countries may follow with their own demands to ensure their loans will be paid back.

Though they have not succeeded in calming the markets, European leaders have taken a series of steps to avert a Lehman-like failure. New credit lines have been opened by the European Central Bank for institutions that need funds, while the proposed Greek bailout would provide loans to countries that need to recapitalize their banks. In addition, the central bank has been buying up bonds from Italy and Spain, among other countries, to keep

interest rates from spiking. Many of these have been bought from European banks, effectively allowing them to shed troubled assets for cash.

While the problems in smaller countries like Greece and Ireland are not new, in recent weeks the concerns have spread to banking giants in countries like Germany and France that are crucial to the functioning of the global financial system and are closely linked with their American counterparts. What is more, worries have surfaced about the outlook for Italy, whose debt dwarfs that of other smaller troubled borrowers like Greece.

“It seems like the banking sector globally is being hurt on multiple fronts,” said Philip Finch, a bank strategist with UBS in London. “It’s definitely getting worse.”

In Europe, the worry is that government bonds owned by European banks could fall sharply in value if economically distressed countries cannot pay back their loans. That would saddle the most exposed banks with huge losses.

As a result, banks are reluctant to lend money to one another and are hoarding cash. “If sentiment continues to deteriorate, ultimately we’ll see a deposit run,” Mr. Finch said. “I’m extremely worried about that.”

Mr. Finch said European banks needed to raise at least 150 billion euros in new capital, even if they do not experience large losses on sovereign debt. With stock prices so low, though, that is difficult to do, and any new offerings of company stock would dilute the value of existing shares.

American money market funds, long a reliable financing source for capital starved European banks, have sharply cut back on their exposure — starting in Spain and Italy but now also France — making it harder for European banks to loan dollars.

The 10 biggest money market funds in the United States cut their exposure to European banks by a further 9 percent in July, or $30 billion, after a reduction of 20 percent in June, the Institute of International Finance said in a report issued Monday.

“U.S. investors remain very sensitive to the headlines out of Europe,” said Alex Roever, who tracks short-term credit markets for JPMorgan Chase. “The sell-off that we’ve seen in European bank stocks is going to reinforce that and investors are likely to stay hyper-cautious. European banks are not borrowing as much, and they’re not borrowing for as long as they could three months ago.”

Nevertheless, American institu-

tions remain vulnerable to problems their French counterparts might encounter. At the end of the second quarter, JPMorgan Chase reported total cross-border exposure of $49 billion to France, while Citigroup had $44 billion and Bank of America had $20 billion.

French banks, which have huge holdings of sovereign debt from countries across Europe, have been among the hardest hit, despite the French government’s efforts to protect them. The authorities imposed a temporary ban on short-selling last month after shares in Société Générale, a bank considered too big to fail, tumbled on rumors it may be insolvent.

But shares of Société Générale are still sliding amid concern that it, like BNP Paribas and other major French banks, is having trouble raising dollars to finance its American and other dollar-based operations.

Société Générale officials say that the market’s fears are unfounded. The bank’s chief executive, Frédéric Oudéa, has described rumors that Société Générale was having trouble raising money as “fantasy.”

The shares closed down 6 percent Tuesday at 18.93 euros. Three months ago the shares were at 40.

What is more, French banks, like other European banks, are able to obtain financing from the European Central Bank if necessary.

Meanwhile, problems in Spain were highlighted on Tuesday when one of Spain’s largest savings banks, Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, reported a startling increase in bad loans to 19 percent of overall lending from 9 percent at the end of last year.

Still, the huge stockpile of euros that banks have stashed away at the European Central Bank at rock-bottom interest rates — last night it hit a recent high of 166 billion euros — suggests that no bank is close to a Lehman-like failure.

The risk now is that Europe’s resistance to recapitalizing its banks could turn into a broader crisis.

Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, had a blunt explanation of why European governments have so far refused to recapitalize their banks.

“They don’t have the money and they are in the pockets of their bankers,” Mr. Gros said.

Policy makers in the United States and Britain, where compulsory infusions of new capital played a crucial role in calming the markets in 2008, have long urged Europe to do the same.

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

29

Games

Sudoku How to Play: Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9 Click the “check sudoku” button to check your sudoku inputs Click the “new sudoku” button and select difficulty to play a new game

Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Wordsearch

Answers on page 30

30

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

HOROSCOPE Aries

(Mar 21-April 20)

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

The best things come in small packages, so quality counts for something. Do not be too fazed by lifes circumstances. Prepare for all eventualities, however. Anything can happen and probably will. Expect to be thoughtful and reflective, as the week winds down. Romance is well blessed; but you will need to be nifty.

Your life can be abundant and profitable; but you need to access your luck. Choose to embrace your opportunities and put the positive energy out there.

Focus on your objectives, for achievement is the order of the day. New experiences will bring added intrigue and interesting diversions. Do not look back over your shoulder.

Taurus

Scorpio

(April 21-May 21)

You can make great use of your mind power and get a lot done; but you have to show willing. Prepare to meet people halfway. Your attitude is crucial as to how quickly you make progress. Be magnanimous and empathetic, in order to get people on side, even as you plan ahead. Excellent strategies will guarantee a personal victory.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Go slowly in affairs of the heart; whats the rush?

Ultimatums never did anyone any favours. Stay chilled as you go about your business. There is no need to lay down the law on anyone or anything. You do not have to impose yourself, in order to get good results. Rely on your judgement, even as you get down to it. Patience will serve you well.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Your planned project WILL come about; but takes its time. Be as imaginative as possible and be selective when planting seeds. Speak your mind in a tricky situation. Nothing is as effective as the truth for shocking people. Follow the rulebook and you can hope for a better return. Be as mighty as you know you can be. You have nothing to prove.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Spellbound magic brings interesting results. But it pays to look heavenwards and request divine intervention for the best results. Rise above the odd setback. You can make great strides, as long as you hang in there.

Giving up is not an option, okay? Acquaintances and friends will offer assistance. Be open; stay dynamic and do not settle.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Things will come to you unexpectedly, even as you let go. Surrender heartfelt desires to the ether. If it lands back in your lap, well, then it is for you, after all. Be philosophical and circumspect. You cant expect to have all the answers so quickly. So do not even attempt to work out the impossible. Trust that the right events will manifest.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

These are ideal times for love and romance. But dont expect an easy ride. The best connections involve a bit of work. Be humble and nifty and exercise some clout. If you cannot work out which end is up, the answer is not under the duvet. Stop hiding and face the world. Have the courage of your convictions and do NOT be ashamed of the way you feel. It is all good.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

There is no point in sabotaging your life, just because you feel restless. But, are you really content with comfortably numb syndrome? Resist the temptation to flee the nest; but make exciting and radical decisions.

A new perspective on an old problem will make all the difference to you. Rely on your inner resistance, resolve and resilience. Let the three Rs inspire you.

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Have confidence in your innate abilities. A reasonable plan of action will work well. Go for it.

These are exciting times, so do not miss out. Try to stop fretting about your circumstances. It is not the right moment yet. Bide your time before you act. Reserve judgement and don’t be too hasty. The correct approach will naturally reveal itself. Prepare for a shake-up.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Someone will get around to something - at last! Prepare for your patience to be well rewarded. Take pride in your achievements. You will soon have reason to be very proud indeed. Are you ignoring or avoiding someone to whom you should be nice? Life is surely too short for weird behaviour. In this day and age, we should value every connection. Try to modify your expectations.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Your life and relationships are about to take on a new shape. Take a chance on love; all is NOT lost. It is better to be open and amenable to your options, than to clam shut at the first sign things are not going your way. Develop your attention span and your tolerance for the twists and turns of destiny. DE-complicate. Not much can shake you to the core of your being.

Answers to the Zudoku and Crossword on page 29

The San Juan Weekly Star

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

Cartoons

31

Ziggi

32

Sept. 15 - 21, 2011

The San Juan Weekly Star